


Revenge

by GotTea



Category: Waking the Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GotTea/pseuds/GotTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several months post Pieta, Boyd and Grace investigate a predator out for revenge...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because of a nightmare, a subsequent but unrelated run of insomnia, and because I watched Straw Dog again and was seriously creeped out by the bad guy. It's been a couple of months in the making, and I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
> I own nothing.

"I hope you have a child, and it dies…”  Tony Greene

* * *

 

* * *

It is dark and gloomy in the interview room, and Grace is tired, hungry and more than a little desperate for a cup of tea. Next to her Boyd is wound so tightly with angry, heavily palpable irritation that she is, quite frankly, stunned that he hasn't simply exploded into a fit of temper yet and resorted to shouting at their thoroughly uncooperative, and very definitely guilty, stubbornly evasive suspect. They've been at this for hours, and still they have achieved nothing but the sly, smug grin on the face of James Higgins that even Grace is now beginning to wish she could knock off his lips with an emphatic and well place slap.

Higgins has narrow, light blue eyes that are too small for the oval face they are set in. Thick, bushy brows in the same reddish blonde as his wildly untamed hair are a disturbing contrast to the sharp, observant gaze. He’s not a tall man, five feet and eight inches in boots, but he is heavily built with the kind of muscle that it takes years of dedicated lifting to amass. He looks like a predator, and though Grace knows there is no way to classify someone as such through their physical appearance, this is the impression she has felt since the moment she first laid eyes on his photograph. He looks like a predator, they know very well he is a predator, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

They are out of time; it's as simple as that. They are going to have to let him go, and simply pray that he does not find another victim before they can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is the serial killer they have been so diligently pursuing for weeks now. Eleven dead girls, partially strangled, thoroughly beaten, and eventually fatally stabbed through the heart. Eleven young lives, tragically ended before they were ever really started, and now there might yet be more.

It infuriates her, that sometimes this is how it goes. They all pour their hearts and souls into this job, commit more hours than anyone not blindly dedicated to their cause would even consider, and yet sometimes the circumstances are just so screwed up that not even they, experts at untangling the inordinately complex knots, can make enough of an impact. Where is the justice? Where is the balance of right and wrong they fight so hard for?

She knows the folly of these thoughts; she is, of course, absolutely aware of exactly how cold and calculating life really is, but that doesn't mean that in moments of weakness when she is tired, or frustrated, or simply just fed up with the status quo she doesn't, education and experience be dammed, privately rage against the complete injustice of it all.

Watching, outwardly serene as always, but internally fiercely enraged, as Spence escorts Mr. Higgins out of the room she can't quite suppress the feelings of age, inadequacy and pure disappointment. She knows, full well, that there is nothing else they could have done up until this point that would have enabled them to make that final arrest, but it doesn't stop the bitter, almost blinding animosity and resentment. It is days like today that make her wonder why she still does this job.

The door shuts firmly behind Spence and Boyd does exactly what Grace feels like doing; he roars in frustration and simply picks up a chair, hurling it furiously across the room before stalking out in a whirlwind of aggrieved energy. Grace follows, much more sedate, but just as tense.

Back in the squadroom the group reconvenes in silent, introspective gloom. It's late, they are all exhausted, and the evidence board is glaring accusingly out over the room; the many pictures, scribbles and connecting lines drawn between are a taunting reminder of their failure. They sit for a while, brainstorming and diligently trying to come up with a solution, but the sad truth is that there is nothing they can do until the missing files are found and returned to them, and the DNA sequencing is complete. Eventually, they give up, dispersing into the night to go home and get some much needed rest.

* * *

Grace shuts her front door behind her and leans heavily against it with a deep, desperate sigh. He is there in an instant, his strong arms folding around her and clutching her tightly to his body. The sheer frustration of the day makes her bury her head into his chest, her hands clenching tightly into his coat. She is close to breaking, and they both know it. This case, on top of what is always the worst week of her year, is dragging her down and threatening to overwhelm her. Her colleagues would never guess it, but he knows. He knows everything now, and this year, she is so, so grateful to have him there with her, beside her.

She doesn’t even realise she is crying, until his arms tighten perceptibly around her and she feels the choking gasping way she struggles to breathe as the tears overwhelm her. He pulls her further into his body, and the way he manages to totally envelop her in his big, strong, muscular frame comforts and calms her, makes her feel loved, protected even. Safe. Home. His chin drops to her shoulder, his head rests against hers, and the quiet simplicity of the moment goes a long way toward helping her restore the balance of her warring and disarrayed heart.

He doesn’t tell her she shouldn’t take it personally; that she’s too involved emotionally. He simply offers comfort and understanding, because he is now intimately all too well acquainted with the same kind of pain.

* * *

When he wakes in the morning, she is already gone from the bed, and evidently, as the cool sheets tell him, has been for some time. He finds her in the kitchen, staring into space, cold toast untouched on the plate before her, and the kettle long since boiled but not emptied into the waiting teapot. He presses the switch, reheats the water and makes the tea.

She still hasn’t said anything to him when he gently pushes the mug into her hands, and he wonders if this is how it will be for him, when that date rolls around year after year. He is still firmly stuck in the year of firsts, and the raw, biting and all-consuming first flush of grief running through him. It hasn’t been long enough for his sorrow to settle into the kind of long term but no longer fresh pain she carries with her.

“Grace,” he murmurs quietly, and she looks up at him, her eyes dull with the wash of memories. He doesn’t have the words, so instead he puts a hand on either side of her face and leans down, pressing his lips slowly and lingeringly to her forehead, letting her know he is there, and if there is anything, anything at all, that he can do to help her, he will. She knows it, and the way she reaches up and wraps a trembling hand around his wrist, he knows she knows. And she is eternally grateful for it.

* * *

Every year she allows herself one day, the seventh of October, to lose herself in the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking emotion of her loss. Today is that day, and as she leaves the house and drives to her first destination the misery in her heart flares from its normal time tempered low levels to that overwhelming devastation that comes with that first moment of comprehension of the totality of loss.

It never gets any better; it only gets easier to live with. The drive is just over an hour and a half, but she does it on autopilot. The same stretch of beach, early in the morning, every year. She walks for a long, long time. Walks and remembers. Memories flood her senses, threaten to overwhelm her. It is awful, yet at the same time it is wonderful. They were happy here, so, so happy, so many times. And it is a great and terrible thing to remember. It is a privilege, and a horror.

She walks and she remembers and she cries. The tears burn her eyes, and wrack her body. They leave her breathless and gasping, clutching her chest in agony as she continues to walk. But they also sooth her soul and cleanse her spirit. Grief is stunningly painful, but it serves to remind her of just how much she had, what she experienced. And she wouldn’t trade it for anything. And in some strange way, on this day every year, when she walks and breaks down in sobs of unreserved anguish, she remembers with enhanced clarity all the tiny details that seem to regress from her memory the more time passes.

The air is cold and heavily scented with brine, the sand is wet and shifting beneath her feet, and the sea stretches infinitely away from her, a churning swelling mass of water that hides so many secrets as she continues to walk beside it, lost in memories and despair. She walks until the tears have subsided, leaving a centred calm behind that is almost liberating. She hasn’t forgotten- and she never will- but she has learned how to live with her loss. She had to, and it was a hard lesson she has to remind herself of every time it gets to be too much.

* * *

“Where’s Grace?” Stella asks Boyd as they crowd around the evidence board that morning, suitably refreshed, revived and ready to continue on with the chase. They will get him, of that each and every one of them is certain. There is a steely determination in the air; they are keenly aware of what is at stake here and they are desperate to finally get Higgins. Weeks of combing through the atrocities that are his crimes have shadowed all their hearts, and yesterday’s debacle, though not their fault, has left them hungry for justice and perhaps even a hint of revenge.

“Not here,” he mumbles absently, trying to focus on a line of thought that is just slightly too far out of his grasp to make sense.

“Sir?” Stella is understandably confused. Grace is missing, and no one but Boyd knows why. Eve is watching him with an unreadable expression on her equally enigmatic features, and if he wasn’t so preoccupied, he would wonder if she has possibly guessed where Grace might be. Then again, he knows it is highly unlikely Grace has shared her secret with anyone, even Eve. Close friends the two of them may be, but even he didn’t know until a few months ago.

Spence is as openly confused as Stella. And rightly so, really. They are firmly entrenched in the critical point of a messy and brutal case, and a key member of their team is suspiciously absent.

“It’s the seventh,” Boyd says, still firmly, pensively engrossed in his musings and thus not really paying attention. “Grace doesn’t work on the seventh of October.”

“What?” Spencer is perplexed, and a little incredulous too. They are, after all, in the middle of a murder enquiry. His tone brings Boyd firmly out of his thoughts, and as he surveys his team and their expressions, he can’t help but think he may have just said too much.

“She asked for the day off,” he says, bluntly dismissive, and determined to get everyone back on track. “Months ago. Can we get back to work now?”

* * *

Lunch time has been and gone by the time she returns to her car to start the next phase of her journey. She’s still lost in her thoughts, and she drives back toward London in silence, the normally comforting sound of the radio eschewed to make room for her contemplative mood.

It’s getting close to three o’clock when she arrives at the cemetery, and though the day is still bright, the air is bitingly cold and crisp, despite the lack of any discernible breeze. She leaves her car in a side street and makes her way not to the main entrance of the hallowed grounds, but to a smaller side gate from where she can quietly and unobtrusively wander through the rows and aisles of headstones, standing in their imposing and gloomy silence, to the one she seeks, the one she could find, after so many years and so many visits, with her eyes closed and the world devoid of light.

It rests beside a tree, the stone she is here to see. It’s an oak, hundreds of years old, appropriately enormous and comfortably knowing in its old age. She has always liked the tree, has always been grateful for its location beside the grave. The huge branches cast shadows over the plot in a manner that is comfortingly protective, and in earlier years she spent a lot of time sitting at the base of the tree, sheltered from the outside world as she learned to come to terms with her grief.

She stands silently at the foot of the grave, staring at the deeply etched words carved into the simple, elegant marker. She doesn’t need to look- she could close her eyes and picture them with perfect clarity if she chose to do so- but she does anyway. Part of grieving is facing up to the truth, something she knows only too well in a professional sense, but had to learn the hard way that it is much more difficult to accept in a personal capacity.

“Happy birthday,” she says quietly, simply. She has no more tears to cry now; the beach, the morning, is for that. For tears and memories and the harsh pervading sense of grief.

Now it is time for quiet reflection, and so she stands there, wrapped tightly in her thick winter coat, gazing calmly and steadily at the words before her, and she reflects.

* * *

Philippa Baker is fifteen years old. She’s tall, athletic and captain of her school’s netball team. She’s quiet, friendly and a dedicated student. She has type one diabetes, loves animals and wants to be a vet. Her eyes are a light, cheerful brown, just like her hair and she smiles often. She volunteers with the RSPCA on Saturday mornings, and has a loveable, scruffy border terrier she walks every morning and evening. Maggie, the terrier, and Philippa are inseparable, which is why, when the dog makes it home without her mistress, the alarm is raised. Philippa is missing.

* * *

Boyd doesn’t want to call her. He knows how important today is, that this is how she chooses to deal with her loss, and he absolutely, wholeheartedly respects it. And under any other circumstances he wouldn’t even dream of interrupting her, but he is desperate.

She answers after the fourth ring and her voice is still raw with emotion, but there is no hint of irritation or distress at being disturbed.

“Are you ok?” he asks gently, and she can feel the genuine concern in his tone.

“Not really,” she replies honestly. “But I will be.” He can feel his chest tighten as he rests his head in his hand, hating what he is about to ask of her.

“Grace… I’m sorry… I,” he begins, and then finds he can’t finish the sentence. This is so wrong, on so many levels.

“What’s the matter Peter?” she asks quietly, reading his anxious tone easily. She knows him. Understands him. And it’s all too obvious to her when something is wrong. She hears him take a deep breath.

“He’s got another one.” That short, simple statement is enough to punch through the quiet composure she has finally returned to. Her heart aches sharply and her eyes swim with the sudden reappearance of tears she had thought were done for the day. The headstone is suddenly blurry in her obscured vision, and that’s when the biting anger of the previous day returns, and with it a swirling, furious determination to bring James Higgins down once and for all.

“I’ll be half an hour,” she says tightly and hangs up, dropping her phone back into her pocket. She stands a moment more, defiantly forcing away the tears until her vision clears and she can stare, just for a few more seconds, at the details before her. And maybe that’s the moment when everything changes. The extra few seconds she waits give opportunity and potential to another person, one whose intentions are far less honourable than hers.

* * *

Detective Superintendent Esther Cohen started her police career at the same time as Boyd; they graduated from Hendon in the same class and simultaneously worked their way up the ranks with exactly the same grim tenacity and fierce devotion to the job and to justice. For the last several years she has worked for the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, heading her own team specialising in murders, abductions and missing persons. When Philippa Baker disappeared, and the connection was made, she was Boyd’s first call. Following Higgins methodology, they have only two days to find the girl, and the more eyes the better he reasoned. With the search for Philippa headed by Esther and her specialist team, the CCU could continue to concentrate on catching Higgins.

Boyd and Esther have been friends since their very first day at police training college, and Eve can see why as she watches the pair of them together. Esther’s team swarmed into the CCU’s basement lair in a flurry of controlled activity; they sat calmly and listened to the briefing from Boyd and his team, asked all the right questions and politely took the offered files of information. And then they promptly swarmed back out again, heading back to their own operations base. With the exception of Esther, who stayed behind to talk to Boyd.

Watching them, Eve has to suppress a laugh; Esther can’t possibly be more than five feet tall, and is equally slender. Physically she’s the complete opposite of Boyd, light gray-blue eyes, pale blonde hair and gentle features. She’s composed entirely of soft curves and quiet lines. She looks like someone’s softly spoken mother or doting aunt. Until she opens her mouth and Eve can see unerringly why the friendship and easy rivalry between the two of them has always been something of a Met legend. For such a tiny woman, Esther bellows with equal ferocity, and swears with equivalent enthusiasm. She even moves from place to place with that same explosive energy, though she is definitely lighter on her feet and a lot more graceful.

The entire exchange is quick and fluid; and Eve can see that Esther’s team is just as tightknit and well suited to the task at hand as the CCU is. The similarities in the management style of the two leaders are apparent, and clearly responsible for the way the two groups are immediately able to work together without even the merest hint of friction. Feeling a little as though she has been swept up in a whirlwind and then spat back out again, Eve takes a seat in the squadroom that only an hour ago was suddenly jam-packed full of people and is now just as suddenly empty again. She is reminded strongly of why the mad rush of time sensitive cases has never appealed to her, and why old and very cold investigations that quite often take their time to unfold so calmly and methodically are much more welcome.

Across the room, Esther shouts something into her phone before hanging up decisively and very abruptly on the caller. Boyd laughs at whatever it is she tells him, the scowl on her face an odd contrast to her pretty features and suddenly she grins, gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder and charges off, the doors banging loudly shut behind her. Eve is fervently glad that she wasn’t around to witness the two of them training together. Or anything else, that may or may not be true, according to the grapevine.

* * *

The arm that wraps around her throat is thick, heavy and ripples with muscle under the anonymous black fleece she can feel pressed tightly against her skin. She initially struggles, of course she does- it’s only instinct after all- but it does no good. She is held, tight and fast, by someone much heavier and stronger than she. No chance of escape, none whatsoever.

She can’t breathe, the single arm is so tightly wrapped around her neck, and she begins to panic. Her vision fogs, and this time it is not from tears, but from lack of oxygen. She can’t concentrate on anything; her thought processes are utterly disrupted and that frightens her more than the arm slowly choking the life out of her. She has always relied on her brain and superior intellectual abilities to get her through the many and varied situations she has faced throughout her life and career.

One thought makes it through the haze, one single command. Stop. So she does, whether by instinct, or choice she couldn’t say, but she does. She stops struggling and just lets her body fall limp, and, incredibly, the pressure lessens. The barest hint of a breath is greedily sucked in by her starved, aching lungs and when the arm suddenly loosens its grip entirely she pitches forward, her knees give out and she slams to the ground, daggers of pain shooting up her thighs as her knees scream in protest.

A hand grasps the back of her neck, and its grip is brutally strong, so strong that when something, a foot or a knee, she doesn’t know which, slams into her back she doesn’t topple forward, but is instead yanked backward into the blow. Agony flares, and for a few interminable moments she thinks she is going to pass out, but she doesn’t and eventually she is able to focus on the fact that she is being dragged upright.

“Get up Doctor Foley,” a deep, masculine voice hisses in her ear. It’s Higgins; she recognizes that instantly, though she knew it was him from the first moment his arm wrapped around her throat.

“The girl,” she gasps, her throat raw and her lungs burning with the effort of forcing the words out. Her head is spinning with a disorienting mixture of pain, breathlessness and shock, and she feels more than hears him laugh. It’s a horribly, disturbingly empty sound that sends a prickle of fear down her spine.

“I’ll play with her later,” he assures her, and the steady, even tone of his voice, laced with hints of excitement and anticipation revolts her, makes her stomach turn. Some recess of her mind that is not yet overwhelmed by the physical onslaught of the situation reminds her to keep him talking. It’s the only thing she can do, after all; she has no hope of escaping him. None at all. He is bigger, younger, faster and infinitely stronger. He has extensive military combat training, and years of experience in restraining and subduing his victims.

He also has the cold, calculating mind of a predator, one Grace is very familiar with, especially after spending hours sequestered away in an interview room with him yesterday. So perhaps there is still a chance of her regaining the upper hand here.

She doesn’t ask him why. It’s a pointless question they both know the answer to.

“And then what?” she wants to know. Behind her, he shrugs and the hand that has replaced the arm around her throat tightens perceptibly. Not enough to cut off her air supply again, but enough to cause a dull, throbbing pain that spreads upwards, making her head ache fiercely. She blinks, clinging tightly to her thoughts, determined not to succumb.

“Then I find another one,” is the indifferent reply.

“It’s not enough though, is it?” she probes, determined to keep him going. He’s made one big mistake so far; he hasn’t restrained both of her hands. Maybe he’s over confident, maybe he’s just dismissive of her abilities because she’s older and seemingly a lot more frail than the healthy, athletic girls in their early teens he favours. Maybe he’s forgetting himself because he is no longer following his pattern and it’s thrown him off balance. Or maybe this is rushed, and not meticulously planned like the others. Whatever it is, he has made that one critical mistake.

“It’s not the same anymore, is it?” she asks him as she slowly slides her hand toward her pocket. “The rush isn’t as powerful, doesn’t last as long, does it?”

He snarls a reply and his fingers tighten a little more, but he’s listening.

“So?” he demands. “Maybe I’m just out of practice.” He laughs, and it’s a horrible, eerie sound that rolls though the deserted graveyard, fading away between the endless rows of tombstones. Her skin is prickling with fear, but there’s a feeling of triumph there as her fingers close around the cold, hard plastic of her mobile.

He has a point; until six weeks ago he was in jail for an unrelated offence. Eight years inside; long enough for the trail to go cold and the eleven dead girls to come to the top of the CCU’s pile. It’s just a coincidence that at the same time they were starting to delve into his crimes, he was suddenly back on the streets and desperate to start the chase all over again.

“Maybe I’m just in too much of a hurry this time,” he continues, savagely twisting the wrist caught in his free hand until she can’t stop the gasping groan of pain from bubbling past her lips. He smirks, victorious for just a moment.

“Why’s that?” she wants to know, her fingers ghosting over the keypad. “You’re meticulous. Methodical. You plan carefully and for a long time. You follow, and you observe, long before you make a move.” He’s listening, she knows it, and he’s considering her question. It’s buying her a little time.

Grace would never claim to be a tech genius, but she has come a long way since the days when computers were a confusing opponent that made the job harder rather than easier. Never one to back down from a challenge, and knowing full well that the world was heading in the direction of ever increasing dependence on technology, she gave in and resigned herself to obtaining the skills and working knowledge sufficient to keep up to date. And that familiarity with technology is a wonderful thing to have, she is now realising as she visualises in her head the layout of her phone and blindly redials the last number to call her.

“Maybe I did my research elsewhere, Doctor Foley. Eight years in jail is a long time to be deprived of a favourite hobby.” His description of the murders sends a shiver of fear down her spine, but she says nothing, keeps listening. “It’s a long time to plan revenge too,” he tells her smoothly.

“I had nothing to do with your conviction,” she tells him.

“Oh, I know that,” he drawls, almost lazily, as though the connection should be obvious. “But Boyd did.”

That makes no sense; Grace knows Boyd had nothing to do with the investigation that sent Higgins down. They went over the details of his arrest when he filtered onto their radar as a possible suspect.

“How?” Grace asks, confused. It’s evidently the wrong thing to say though, because Higgins is suddenly furious. Without speaking, he yanks on both of her arms, hauling them behind her back and there isn’t time to let go of the phone in her grip before her hand is pulled from her pocket. It clatters to the ground, face down and he grinds it into pieces under his heal.

“Thinking of phoning a friend?” he sneers in her ear, his breath hot and sour against her skin. “Or perhaps someone more… meaningful?”

And she knows, right then and there, that Higgins knows. About her and Boyd. Peter. He’s using her to get even with Boyd. And maybe he’s spent eight years planning his revenge, but his knowledge of their relationship must be recent, and that’s why this has that hint of the unplanned when she compares it with everything else she knows about his previous attacks.

“He’s going to regret this for the rest of his life,” Higgins whispers to her. “I was going to kill him instead, but then I saw the two of you and I thought of a better way to make him suffer. It was too easy to find out about your little secret here,” he mocks, and Grace has to fight every suddenly raging instinct not to lash out, or struggle, or do anything stupid when his booted foot kicks the flowers resting serenely on top of the grave, and they tumble away, petals falling lifelessly from their stems, scattering loosely over the grassy earth.

“You must have hated this case,” he taunts her, and she closes her eyes, determined to give him nothing. And while her heart is screaming at the injustice of it all, her calmly logical brain is still defiantly working away, desperately thinking of a way, any possible way, out of this situation.

“So you kill me, and the girl, and then what?” she demands. “What happens after that? What do you do then?”

Not what he expected her to say. She isn’t begging him for her life like the rest of them do, and it’s confusing. His intent is momentarily side-tracked as he considers her words.

“I find another one,” he says, without really thinking about it.

“And you watch Boyd suffer?” she pushes.

“Yes,” the reply is decisive, and vindictive. Classic revenge.

“It won’t work, you know,” she tells him, almost conversational.

“Of course it will. He’s going to rue the day he met me, every last lonely day of the rest of his life.”

Grace shakes her head a fraction, and Higgins growls in irritation.

“It won’t make you feel any better,” she continues, and she can feel the hooks of his attention sinking firmly in. Whether he wants to or not, he’s becoming firmly interested in what she has to say.

“Why?’ he demands at last.

“Because grief is boring,” she explains. “And watching someone grieve is even more tedious. You won’t get anything out of it, and it certainly won’t bring back the time you lost.”

She’s got his attention, and in the end that’s probably the second thing today thing that goes firmly against her. Because when someone, dozens of yards away, suddenly lets the cemetery gates bang shut behind them, Higgins reacts on pure instinct. There’s no time to think, and in his panic he falls back on his automatic endgame without conscious consideration.

He moves before Grace can even register what he’s doing; all she knows is that one moment her arms are pinned, numb and useless, behind her back, and the next she is tumbling to the ground. She lands among the grass and the petals; there is blood, lots of it, and pain. Unimaginable pain that cuts her breath and obscures her mind. Higgins is gone, and she is alone with the gravestones, the icy evening air and the protective shadow of the ancient oak tree.


	2. Chapter 2

The four of them are clustered around the central desks of the squadroom, mapping likely places Higgins might have taken Philippa Baker since the surveillance unit trailing him  reported him missing and the discovery of another snatched girl became known. Esther’s team is already out in the city, scouring his home, work and other known locations.

Despite the urgency, there is calm amongst them. They know, all too well, that anything but will not help them work faster.

Eve has trace evidence from his clothing, which she uses to shade in various areas of their map, outlining his movements. Spence and Stella have lists of possible locations, which they plot with red pens, before drawing a circle around them all, containing Higgins most likely radius. It still leaves a lot of ground where Philippa could be hidden.

The phone rings and Boyd picks it up without thinking, his attention still firmly on the map.

“His home and work are clear,” he tells the others as he replaces the receiver with a scowl. Eve is rifling through files on Higgins.

“What about all these buildings connected to his arrest?” she asks Spence.

“Some of them are under different ownership now, and some of them are disused,” he shrugs, but they plot the locations anyway, using blue pens this time.

Stella can feel a headache steadily developing behind her eyes as she studies another file, and she stands and moves to the coffee pot, hoping a drink will help to refresh them all. She automatically moves through the chore, and it isn’t until she goes to hand the last mug to Grace that she realises what time it is. Her eyes flicker uneasily over the clock before she looks at Boyd.

“Sir,” she calls out, feeling a sense of vague unease begin to spread through her body.

“What Stella?” Boyd asks absently, still lost in his thoughts as he tries to make the connections.

“Sir, you said Grace would be here in half an hour. That was more than ninety minutes ago.”

He turns to stare at her, his attention thoroughly captured.

“Are you sure?” How has he not noticed? Stella nods, and he can see Eve is starting to look faintly apprehensive too. If Grace said half an hour, she meant half an hour.

He reaches into his pocket for his mobile, and realises it’s sitting on his desk where he left it earlier. She called him back, over an hour ago according to the missed call timestamp. He dials her number, but the call doesn’t connect and he tries again, with the same result.

“Spence,” he’s back in the squadroom in just a few quick paces. His right-hand man looks up from the map, sees the concern on Boyd’s face.

“What?”

“Can you trace Grace’s phone?” The three of them stare back at him, and he reaches for the desk phone, pressing the speaker button and dialling the number again. The same response echoes in the silent basement.

“Where was she when you spoke to her?” asks Eve.

“I don’t know,” replies Boyd, wishing he’d asked her where she was going today.

“And she definitely said she’d be here in thirty minutes?” Stella looks worried now.

“Yes,” he’s impatient, and more than a little worried. “She called me back, not long after I spoke to her. Look.” He pulls the call history up on his phone and hands it to Stella.

“You didn’t answer,” she remarks, pressing keys.

“I didn’t hear it ring; I was out here,” he’s frustrated now, and verging on shouting his displeasure.

“It went to voicemail,” Stella points out, and she hands the phone back to him. She’s right, the missed call message obscured the voicemail message when he first picked it up. He presses buttons, and holds the phone up to his ear, but has no idea what he’s hearing.

Holding the phone out to Eve, he tells Stella,

“Get someone round to her house, look for her car.” He turns. “Spence?” the younger man shakes his head.

“Nothing. I can’t find her mobile. Either she’s switched it off, or it’s been disabled.”

They troop quickly to the lab, their steps a staccato beat on the concrete floor. Within minutes Eve has the message downloaded from the phone and is trying to enhance it. Dialogue is the first thing to become clear, though it is heavily muffled.

_“plan revenge too,”_

_“I had nothing to do with your conviction,”_

_“Oh, I know that… but Boyd did.”_

_“How?”_

Eve fiddles with the software, and plays the recording again. Stella pales, Spence clenches the table edge in his fists and Boyd presses a hand over his eyes, clutching desperately at his control. This is not happening. Surely it isn’t.

“That’s Higgins voice,” Spence finally says, and Boyd and Stella nod in agreement.

“Why is it so muffled?” asks Stella, thinking aloud. “Is the phone in her pocket maybe?”

“I think so,” agrees Eve, a frown nestled in her brows as she listens again, and makes another alteration. “Listen, you can hear almost nothing while they’re speaking, and then the ambient sound changes for a couple of seconds right before the message ends.”

Eve plays the clip again and again.

“I think the clatter at the very end is the phone falling to the ground,” she observes, and isolates the seconds right before, trying to pick apart the background noise once the phone is in the open air.

“Is that a bird?” asks Spence, listening intently.

“Sounds like it,” nods Eve, as Boyd agrees.

“So they’re outside,” notes Stella. There is nothing else they can discern, not without spending a great deal of time that they don’t have analysing further, and Eve moves back to the very end of the clip, trying to separate out what she thinks is two distinct sounds while the others talk.

“So are we assuming that Higgins has either abducted, or attacked Grace?” asks Spencer.

“Yes,” replies Boyd, trying not to imagine the hundreds of awful scenarios that omission causes. “Grace wouldn’t approach him on her own, especially not when she isn’t working.”

“Did she tell you anything at all about why she wanted the day off?” Stella asks Boyd.

“Personal reasons,” he replies firmly. “She said nothing about where she was going, or what she was doing.” He racks his brain for places she might have gone, and asks himself where he would go in her shoes. He has a few ideas, but nothing concrete and they don’t have time to go traipsing across half the city. Spence and Stella are discussing the bird again, but it’s getting them nowhere, just as his thoughts aren’t either. The minutes are ticking steadily by, and every single one of them is becoming visibly more and more anxious.

“There’s a faint sound of traffic in the background.” Eve tells them abruptly, pulling off the headphones she has been using. “It’s not close by, but it’s pretty heavy. I think it’s a major road. Also, there’s this. Right at the end when she drops the phone.” Eve plays the last few seconds, and then repeats it, removing the noise from the phone. All of them hear the enhanced gasp of pain that leaves them cold with fear. They stand in stunned silence, the situation suddenly much more real and terrifying.

Stella’s phone ringing makes every single one of them jump as it squeals gratingly in the deafening stillness. She in uncharacteristically short with whomever is on the other end of the line, hanging up abruptly.

“She’s not at home, her car isn’t there, and there’s no sign of a struggle. Her neighbours haven’t seen her all day.”

One hand buried in his hair, Boyd recounts what they know so far, desperate to make a connection.

“Outside. Quiet. A bird, faint traffic noise,” he lists off.

“Wide open space,” adds Eve. “There’s no echoing or discernible reflected sound.”

“A park?” suggests Stella, dreading the thought. There are far too many parks in London to search quickly.

“No,” Eve shakes her head slowly. “There are no other people.”

“A big space with no people and only distant traffic, in London?” questions Spence, a disbelieving scowl on his face. “Is that a riddle?”

“She's in a cemetery,” says Boyd, absolutely certain he is right, and he’s charging out of the room before any of them can ask questions.

* * *

Hannah Jacobs. The one where he made a mistake. That’s the connection they are looking for. Almost eighteen months before the creation of the CCU, Boyd and his partner at the time were leaving an interview in Greenwich when they caught a man in the process of twoc’ing their police issue vehicle. On the suspect’s part, it was just bad luck that he picked an officer’s car, and that in his desperation, he chose to take it at the exact moment Boyd and his DS were returning to it. He was summarily arrested, charged and bailed with an invitation to appear in the magistrate’s court. Not a particularly noteworthy offense, but an offence none the less.

And as such things go, records were kept, records which, barely a year later, matched Higgins fingerprints and named him as an accomplice in an extremely expansive and well established organized crime ring and thus saw him discharged from the army and taken off the streets for eight long years. Eight years away from capturing, torturing and killing young girls. Eight years to plot his revenge on Boyd for arresting him that first time and dirtying his otherwise pristine, untouched slate.

Hannah Jacobs was the fifth of the eleven dead girls, and the only one in any way remarkably different from the others. In the midst of her captivity she suffered an allergic reaction to an insect bite and Higgins left to find antihistamines for her. A simple twist of fate put him on a collision course with Boyd when, after discovering his own vehicle had a flat tyre, he then attempted, in his hurry, to steal the next available car he could find.

Arrest. Record. Flagged in the system. No longer a nobody; no longer an invisible man able to carry on with his dark, disturbing pastime in quite so much peace and relative safety. And certainly not able to skate under the radar when his part in that cross continental smuggling operation imploded quite so spectacularly. Damn Peter Boyd and his stupid police issue car.

* * *

Boyd’s heart is thudding painfully in his chest as he drives with astonishing speed across London, lights and sirens deployed as he mentally recalculates the quickest route every time congestion appears in his path. Behind him, Spencer and Stella are armed and ready, but sitting silently, still taking it all in. On his left, Eve is quiet as well, but her mind is ticking away, analysing possible scenarios and sifting through anything and everything that they know, looking for something that might possibly help them.

He doesn’t remember the last time he felt this sick with worry, with fear of what might have happened. He loves her. He really does. Absolutely and unreservedly. And the thought that something may have, probably has, happened to her…

Not helping.

He clenches his teeth and forces himself to concentrate on what he knows, not what he doesn’t. Grace is missing. Higgins is missing. And Philippa Baker is still missing too. And from the moment he picked up his phone and the four of them listened to that message they have been operating under the assumption that if they find Grace, they will hopefully find Higgins, and then Philippa. If the state of his own heart is anything to judge by, then the girl’s parents must be going out of their minds right about now.

Again, not a helpful thought. He focuses on the cemetery layout; he’s only been there once before, months ago now, and he’s struggling to place the location of the grave. They entered through a side gate, but he has no idea which streets to take with the night sky obscuring the landmarks so much more easily recognisable in the daytime and so he heads for the main entrance, switching off the harsh blue lights and wailing siren as they make the final approach, the car screaming up the drive.

The place is vast, many acres spread out around them, and he makes an educated guess, following the fork in the road to the right. The car zips past an imposing winged statue and he slams on the brakes. Last time he was here, they walked past that statue, and he made her laugh with a comment about its misshapen head. Grace’s laughter. What wouldn’t he give to hear that sound right now?

They tumble out of the car, Spence and Stella with their guns already drawn, and all four of them brandishing torches. There is a decent amount of moonlight, but it’s not enough, not even remotely enough, to light the way through rows and rows of silent, shadowed gravestones. Boyd waves a hand in the best guess of direction he can give, already moving as quickly as he can, weaving through the tangle of graves, flowers and mementos left in memory of loved ones.

They spread out, moving quickly, quietly and methodically. The area is deserted, and the air is eerily still; underfoot leaves that have fallen recently as autumn creeps in rustle as they are disturbed, creating a crunching audio counterpart to the crackling tension. It’s bitterly cold out, and despite the adrenalin of the situation and the thick winter coat wrapped around his body, Boyd is shivering. It’s been over three hours now since he spoke to Grace, asked her to come in and help them out, and he’s fervently hoping she hasn’t been out here all that time.

He’s sure he’s heading in the right direction, and when an enormous oak comes into view he breaks out into a full sprint, desperation fully taking hold. Eve is off to his left somewhere; he can still hear her, and out of the corner of his eye he can see the beam of her torch moving in his direction. Spence and Stella he’s not so sure about, hasn’t seen them in a few minutes now.

He’s getting nearer, can see the imposing hundred year old family tomb that’s a few rows in front of the solitary headstone he’s seeking, and then his torch light falls on a very familiar pair of boots and panic begins to rise in his chest. Grace is slumped across the grave, face down, unmoving and unresponsive when he calls her name. He’s on his knees beside her in seconds, his fingers fumbling for her pulse and finding nothing.

“Eve,” he roars, his enraged desperation flooding thunderously out over the desolate landscape. She’s right behind him, sliding unceremoniously to a stop and pushing his hand aside, experienced, trained fingers gently probing the carotid artery in Grace’s neck.

“She’s not dead,” there is heavy relief glimmering in Eve’s eyes as she sweeps her torch over Grace’s body, looking for clues, signs of damage, but she emits a soft gasp as the edge of the beam lights up the perimeter of the grass under them.

“Boyd, look,” she says, her tone laced with a wild mixture of fear, disbelief and horror. He looks, and immediately feels like he’s going to vomit. There is blood everywhere; Grace is lying in it, they are kneeling in it and the deathly pale hand resting among the leaves and flower petals is covered in it.

Eve has dropped her torch, and her hands are moving over Grace, checking, hunting and searching; desperate to find the source of the damage they both know has to be there. She finds nothing, and orders Boyd to help her roll Grace, shows him where to put his hands and counts to three before they slowly, and with incredible gentleness, manoeuvre her onto her back.

“Oh my God,” whispers Eve, horrified. Boyd turns quickly, bending double and heaving into the grass and leaves, the earlier coffee bitterly working its way up and coating his throat with the acidic taste of rage and despair.

When he turns back, Eve has decisively slammed the door on her emotions and is firmly locked into her calm, detached professional manner, concentrating intensely on everything she can do to help. He wishes he could do the same, but it’s Grace lying there in front of him, soaked in her own blood. His Grace with the angry, inflamed marks of attempted strangulation around her neck, and three precise, almost clinical stab wounds to her chest.

Spence and Stella arrive simultaneously as Eve is using the stunned and silent Boyd’s hands to direct the light where she wants it.

“Call an ambulance,” she barks at the two of them, and orders Spencer back to the road to guide the paramedics to their location. Grace has the classic presentation of advancing hypovolemic shock; a weak, rapid pulse, hypothermia and cold, clammy skin, as well as quick, shallow breathing.

The three of them strip off their coats and use them as blankets, trying to protect Grace from the biting cold. Two of the three wounds are merely oozing a slight amount of blood, and Eve gets Stella to apply pressure to the third, which is concerning her the most.

“Her lips are blue,” murmurs Stella, who is staring at Grace’s face even as she does as Eve has instructed. Slow and silent tears are dripping steadily down her face, but she doesn’t know it, she’s too caught up in the sheer distress of the moment.

“It’s because she’s not getting enough oxygen,” explains Eve, moving to breathe for her in long, steady, practiced breaths. Frustration is clawing at her, but she thrusts it away with an iron will; there is very little she can do without the necessary medical equipment, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to let Grace die on her watch. Keeping a steady count in her head, she exhales more air into lungs that are no longer functioning independently at any useful capacity. Concentrating grimly on her work, out of the corner of her eye she can just see the way Boyd has Grace’s blood covered hand clutched tightly in his.

* * *

The ambulance arrives and the paramedics take over; they are far better enabled to help Grace, but Eve is seriously starting to doubt that it will be enough. She thinks they may have arrived just too late to make the difference and, knowing he will see it in her expression, she resolutely refuses to look at Boyd as he climbs into the back of the vehicle that is preparing to depart.

And then they are both gone, Grace and Boyd, and Eve is left standing on a grave in the middle of a deserted cemetery, Spence and Stella flanking her in dazed uncertainty.

It is Spencer who finally breaks the silence.

“Will she be ok?” his voice is tight and strained, and Eve is all too aware of the devastation that will encompass the entire team if Grace doesn’t make it. She is their glue, binding them all firmly together. She’s about to give him an honest answer, when she catches sight of the expression on Stella’s face and her resolve crumbles.

“I hope so,” she murmurs instead, watching the now distant flashing lights fade away into the night sky. They move away from the road and back to the grave that has become a crime scene; none of them know what to say and the silence that stretches between them is fraught with emotion.

Stella is sweeping her torch over the ground around them, searching for clues in a vain effort to stop thinking and just work. Keep herself preoccupied.

“What was she doing here anyway?” she finally asks, her question directed at no one in particular. With Grace no longer lying there, the extent of the disaster that has unfolded is much more visible. The blood pool, in its sheer size alone, is enough to make Eve feel cold, tired and defeated, even without all the additional knowledge her medical training has provided in the last few minutes. Hope feels like something far, far too far out of reach, and now that she is no longer functioning as a lifeline, her wall of detachment is well and truly crumbling.

Her own torch finds the remnants of fresh flowers; broken stems and strewn petals. Trampled into the earth are the fragments of a broken phone, also shattered beyond repair. Spence crouches by the headstone, and when the steady beam illuminates the words there, Eve knows the hunch she has been pondering for most of the day is right.

Kally Aurora Shaw

7th October 1985 - 3rd September 1992

Beloved daughter- Forever in our hearts

“It would have been her birthday today,” muses Stella, as all three of them stare at the inscription.

“Who was she?” Spence wants to know, bullish anger and strident investigative assertiveness taking over as his need to inspect, need to know, takes hold. It’s a coping mechanism, probably a good thing. Someone needs to find out what happened here. Eve clears her throat, not sure she wants to voice her thoughts. It seems like a gross invasion of privacy, but she knows that they will find out eventually. SOCO’s will be crawling all over the place soon enough, and everything about the situation will be scrutinised.

“Shaw was Grace’s married name,” she says quietly. “And this was her daughter.”

* * *

The silence that descends in the wake of Eve’s declaration is truly deafening, in every sense of the word. Stella is deeply horrified and simultaneously distraught at the thought of such a tragic loss, and Spencer is frozen in his tracks, his fury abruptly wiped clean away as he struggles to comprehend the sheer enormity of the shattering news.

They all love Grace, without reserve. She holds their team together, she is the one who everyone turns to in a crisis or when they are in need of kindness or a calm, listening ear. Mothering instincts. And now they know why. There have been many assumptions over the years, and they all know Grace has always been not necessarily tight-lipped but definitely very quiet about her personal life. They know she lives alone, and somehow over the years it has emerged that she has little family, but never has she spoken of children, or the loss of. She’s never even explained the wedding ring on her finger.

An intensely private widow, with a warm heart and a hugely valued and important place in their team, and indeed their lives. That has always been the assumed status quo.

Eve looks at both of them, and despite the crackling tension arcing across the small space where so much chaos and brutality has occurred, perhaps irrevocably damaging their very close knit unit, there is still a steely resolve in all three. They take a moment to find and desperately cling to some sort of equilibrium, and then they try their hardest to keep going.

Stella turns back to the headstone, suppressing tears and concentrating fiercely, searching for something, anything to help. Spence, avoiding the ground that is still saturated with blood, scans the less immediate area, trying very hard not to think about anything too closely, and instead focus strictly on investigating. Eve does the exact opposite; instead of blocking out what has happened, she runs through it in her mind, recreating as much of it as exactly as she can.

It hurts, and her mask of professionalism aside, she flinches in appalled and scandalised distress as she envisions where Grace was standing and how she fell, her thoroughly trained mind providing exactly the details she has never wanted, or ever before had to, apply in a personal situation. Shining her torch on the grass, she picks out the spot where Grace and Higgins were standing. Crouching, she examines the area more carefully. The splintered fragments of what was Grace’s mobile are stomped firmly into the ground, broken beyond any hope of repair. The SIM card might just be recoverable though, and inadvertently she wonders if Grace will need it.

She can’t think about it. Won’t let herself; not while there is still a chance she can help. Not until there is absolutely no reason to keep clinging, however desperately and naïvely, to whatever shreds of hope there still are. She forces her thoughts back to the ground and what she sees.

There’s something else there. Altering the angle of her torch, she picks out a plastic key fob, half buried in the grassy dirt by an unknowing foot. Recently too, for the plastic is still clean and neat and in good condition. There’s a logo on it, and despite the fact that her hands are still bloody, that she has no forensics tools on her, or even a pair of gloves, and that it goes against all her training and instincts, she gently and carefully eases the scrap of plastic out of the ground for closer examination.

The logo advertises a storage facility. Not a prominent company, or even one she recognises, but she still opens her mouth and yells for Spencer as realisation hits that this may just be the clue they have desperately been searching for. There is a key attached, and as she triumphantly straightens the first wail of the approaching police sirens summoned by her companions is heard.

Spence is on the phone, demanding information as more flashing blue lights appear on the horizon, edging closer. He gets his answer as the approaching vehicles turn into the cemetery main gates, heading their way. Hanging up, he snaps out,

“Let’s go,” and he and Stella dash away to Boyd’s abandoned Audi, leaving Eve momentarily very much alone with the blood and the damage.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The crime scene techs are her team, summoned from their respective evening plans by a short, sharp phone call from Stella. Every one of them knows Grace, and likes her. Every one of them is just as shocked as she is.

Eve stands silently; watching from the sidelines as they work quietly and diligently, setting up their equipment and beginning to process the scene. Steph, the senior team leader, approaches carefully with a blanket in her hands. She offers it to Eve, who is shivering violently, having been out in the cold without her coat for a long time now. She hasn’t noticed; the adrenalin that was flooding her veins is now dissipating and leaving behind an unsteady mixture of shock and exhaustion. She really needs to eat something, but the thought doesn’t even occur to her. She’s still staring intensely at the grave; a very uncharacteristic and wholly unfamiliar wave of anxiety gripping her tightly, her gaze fixated on the damage.

“Are you ok, Doctor Lockhart?” Steph asks quietly. It takes several long seconds for the words to register, and even longer for her to muster a response, but eventually Eve manages a slight nod, still gazing at the activity surrounding her, lost in a tangle of memories as her mind runs through the details of last few hours.

Seeing the pathologist is obviously preoccupied, Steph shakes out the blanket and wraps it tightly around Eve’s shoulders. Under the harsh and unforgiving glare of the bright, artificial lights that have been set up, Steph can see the blood staining Eve’s hands and smeared on her clothing.

“What did the paramedics say?” Steph tries again, and that at least brings a focused response.

“That she’d obviously lost a lot of blood,” replies Eve slowly, and her eyes are drawn to the spot where Grace was lying. Under the lights she can see exactly how ridiculously understated that account is.

She feels eerily calm, despite it all. But she doesn’t want to stay here any longer. She doesn’t need to either, she realises. These are her people, she trusts them implicitly. They will do what needs to be done. She looks at Steph.

“I’m going to the hospital.” The other woman nods, understanding.

“Let me know, yeah?”

Eve promises, her eyes falling one more time on the scene of utter carnage before her.

“Steph,” she says, her voice quiet, her tone heavily weighed down with sadness.

“Yes?”

“Be careful with the grave. Please.”  

* * *

The storage facility is clear on the other side of the city, and Stella calls in the request for armed backup to meet them there as Spencer pushes the car with the same relentless zeal that Boyd is so fond of as they tear across the capital, the blue lights and siren fully engaged for the second time that night.

It’s a very unremarkable place; that much is immediately clear when they arrive. As are the other reasons for its appeal to a man like Higgins; it’s out of the way, clearly ill favoured by the sort of people he would want to avoid, and not somewhere you regularly bump into the other customers.

Summoned from his home, the owner, a short, scrawny and rather rat-like man by the name of Karl Bowen, meets them at the gate and grudgingly tells them that a Mr. Higgins is not one of his clients. But when Spencer furiously waves a photo in his face, he quickly identifies Higgins as the man paying the rent on unit eighteen. End of the row, furthest from the road and additionally accessible through the property’s broken rear fence if one is determined enough not to be seen and doesn’t mind a few overzealous brambles.

They converge on the unit in question; there’s no need for the key, though it fits the broken padlock like a glove. The cheap lock has been cut, most likely with a pair of bolt cutters when Higgins discovered he'd lost the key. Covered by the armed officers, Spence cautiously tries the door. It gives way easily, throwing them all into the centre of living hell.

* * *

The emergency department is quiet. There are no shouted orders, no medical staff dramatically rushing from place to place, and no screaming or hysterical relatives. The stillness, and the lack of discernable action is grating on his nerves as he waits, the rush from racing across the city and then desperately searching for her has long since ebbed, leaving him cold, exhausted and terrified.

There is nothing now, to keep him occupied. Nothing to drag his mind away from the memory of her lying there so pale, so still and looking like she’d already slipped away from him. Nothing to keep the absolute, unrelenting terror at bay. Nothing at all.

He’s in the same spot he has been since they took her away through the windowless double doors; leaning against the wall some fifteen feet away and staring at the floor as if it will give him the answers he’s so desperately craving. He has no idea how long he’s been waiting, only that it’s been a long, long time and that for every second that ticks past, his heart gets that much heavier with shock and grief and horror.

He can’t get that image out of his mind; not the one where he and Eve, in the light of the torch, first saw all the blood and the way her lips were blue and her skin so pale it looked like wax, but the other one. The one in the ambulance, where he saw far too clearly the cold, clean edges of the three stab wounds taunting him, daring him to try and hold on to her now. There was blood all over her chest, dark red and spilling from skin that he knows is so, so soft and smooth to the touch.

He can’t remember anything that the paramedics said to him, only that Grace was lying there and she never once opened her eyes. They put a tube down her throat and cut away her top; he remembers that because it was one of her favourites and he thought, rather inanely, that she would be furious with them. But then her injuries were visible and everything after that became a blur.

He held her hand and begged her to fight, to hang on for him. For both of them. She’s not ready to die. He knows, because she told him. Told him what she still wants to do with her life; places she still wants to visit, things she still wants to achieve. It started out as a silly, idle discussion of things they both still wanted to see and do, things they wanted to accomplish with their lives, but it quickly took on a lot more seriousness as they lay in her bed one night in the warm and very lazy aftermath of a fierce blaze of heat, passion and desire, and talked about the future. And he can remember exactly the way his lips were trailing across her shoulder when she bluntly informed him that she thoroughly intended him to accompany her on her list of adventures.

She’s not ready to die, but maybe that decision isn’t up to her. It’s a terrifying thought, and one he can’t stop from swirling around inside his mind. He’d do anything to fix this, anything at all. But there’s nothing for him to do but wait. Wait and hope.

* * *

The contents of the storage unit are a grim and chilling confirmation that Higgins is indeed their killer. The array of tools, restraints and detritus lying around confirm the tiny room as the place the girls were held while Higgins carried out his sickening fantasies and brutal murders. Forensic techs descend on the place to document, gather and preserve the evidence for later examination in Eve’s lab.

Amongst the mess and the filth, they find Philippa Baker’s school bag, but no trace of the girl herself. Pulling out his phone Spencer dials DSI Cohen to update her on their discovery.  

“We’ve found his lair, but the girl isn’t here,” he informs her bluntly. “Her school bag is here, but her insulin kit is missing.”

“Anything to indicate where he might have taken her?” asks Esther.

“Not yet,” replies Spencer.

“Is there CCTV?” Esther wants to know.

“No,” Spencer looks over at Stella who has just returned from scanning the nearby streets. She scribbles in a notebook and hands him the page. “But there are cameras two roads over,” he tells the DSI, reading their locations aloud from the page.

“Are there any witnesses? Anything to help us establish a time frame?” demands Esther.

“No,” Spence shakes his head as he talks. “But we know Higgins was in Finchley Cemetery at three twenty-seven.”

“What the hell was he doing there?” Esther’s impatience is readily apparent across the phone line and suddenly it occurs to Spence that in the rush to find Grace, no one thought to update Esther’s team.

“Boyd missed a call from Doctor Foley, our team profiler, at three twenty-seven.”

“I know Grace,” Esther interrupts him, “I’ve worked with her several times over the years.”

“Well the call went to his answering service before it was cut off. The phone was in her pocket and Higgins was there, his voice was on the message too. We found Grace at six forty-five; Higgins was long gone.”

“You found her?” Esther’s tone is deeply suspicious and very wary.

“He stabbed her three times in the chest and left her to bleed to death on top of her daughter’s grave,” Spence chokes on the words, but gets them out. His free hand is clenched into a tight fist as he speaks, and he looks down and away, avoiding Stella’s gaze as her eyes fill with tears as the memories temporarily pushed away by the mad chase to the storage unit come flooding back with a vengeance.

For a moment there is a stunned silence stretching between them all.

“Is she dead?” Esther finally asks.

“No,” replies Spence. “But she was out in the cold for what we’re estimating is about three hours. We think he left Finchley not long after the call.”

“Right, I’ll get people looking at the CCTV for the locker, and around the cemetery. See if we can pick him up anywhere on tape. Hopefully his vehicle too.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Spencer wants to know.

“No. Just keep me informed if you find anything else,” Esther sounds simultaneously tired and energised. She pauses for a moment, and then asks, “Where’s Boyd?”

“He went with Grace in the ambulance,” Spence tells her.

“Of course he did,” she mutters, distracted by the notes she is scribbling on a thick pad of paper.

“What does that mean?” Spencer asks.

“Nothing,” replies Esther, putting her pen down and focusing. “Just that I’ve known Grace a long time, and I’ve known Boyd even longer than that.” And she abruptly ends the conversation, leaving Spencer to stare at his phone in confusion.

* * *

Eve is walking down the hallway toward him, and he is quite genuinely stunned at how disheveled and downright alarming her physical appearance is. Normally well dressed, if in a slightly eclectic way, she is anything but her usual appearance. Her jeans are covered in blood from the knees down and her hands are smeared red, as are the edges of her sweater’s green sleeves. A thick blanket is wrapped around her shoulders and she’s holding on to it in a grip so tight he can see the strain in her knuckles, but she hardly seems aware of it.

It’s an alarming sight, one that makes him wonder if his appearance is similar. Looking down he discovers the light gray fabric of his suit is also thoroughly stained. He too has Grace’s blood embedded into the cloth of his trouser legs from the knees down. It’s mixed with muddy earth and a few errant blades of grass that have stuck to the weave of the fabric. His hands are just as messy as Eve’s, and he holds them up, staring in an overwhelmed mixture of disbelief and stupefied horror at the way the blood has dried on his skin, seeped into his nail beds and left tiny, dark red lines across his palms. Grace’s blood. From those three, steadily oozing stab wounds. His head’s spinning, and he thinks he’s going to be sick again.

Eve sees his expression as she draws nearer, and reaches out a hand to him, breaking his focus.

“Deep breaths,” she orders gently, “in through your nose, out through your mouth. Nice and slow.” He does as she says, and feels his equilibrium begin to return.

“Thanks,” he tells her, and she can clearly hear the wavering, unsteady grip he has on his emotions in his tone.

“Have you heard anything yet?” she asks, desperate to know. He shakes his head, and now she can visibly see the desperation in his eyes too.

“Nothing,” he whispers, waving a hand in the direction of the doors. “They took her and… nothing…”

He looks so worn out and distressed, so absolutely, utterly heartbroken that Eve can’t help but feel incredibly sorry for him. She’s believed for years that the two of them would be perfect for each other, and she’s suspected for months that they might have actually finally seen sense, but it was only a few weeks ago that she found out for sure. She saw them together, in a quiet and very much out of the way park. It was a Saturday, late in the afternoon and they were walking together, hand in hand. Out for a run after a morning spent playing with bones at the body farm, she had stopped by a bench to retie a stubborn shoe lace and looked up to see them pause in the shadow of a stand of trees for a kiss that was soft and tender and incredibly loving.

In the few moments she had observed them together, it was immediately obvious to Eve that the intimacy shared by the two of them was not new. Feeling like an intruder, even from dozens of yards away, she had turned around and headed back in the same direction she had come, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with physical exertion. There weren’t another two other people she knew who were so deserving of finding such happiness together.

Now he looks as though the bottom has dropped out of his world, as though the last stable thing anchoring him to reality has been stripped away. He looks like he is finally about to crack under the strain of all the pressures so relentlessly weighing down his shoulders. Abruptly turning, Eve hurries back to the A&E department’s main desk, determined to extract some information. If she has to throw around whatever medical and police authority she can claim, then so be it.

It takes her a while, and a frightful amount of belligerent persistence, but eventually she is promised that someone will come and speak to them as soon as possible. That someone is a harried and tired, but very experienced, senior trauma consultant. Doctor Wallace is quiet and calm and bluntly honest with the pair of them.

Grace is critical and they are still trying to stabilise her condition. She’s not breathing independently, she’s hypothermic, and she has significant internal bleeding in her chest cavity that is preventing her lungs from functioning. Boyd is lost in the rapid, incomprehensible conversation that passes between Eve and Doctor Wallace. When the man turns to leave, he asks the only question that matters.

“Is she going to die?” he demands. Doctor Wallace stares at him for a long moment, and in his eyes Boyd can see the compassion, the weight of responsibility, and the endless traumatic battles to save lives. And he can see the honesty with which the reply is delivered.

“I really don’t know. I’m sorry.”

* * *

There’s a bench halfway down the corridor; he heads straight for it and collapses onto the hard metal frame, his head falling forward to rest in his hands, his fingers griping his hair in despair. He forgets everything around him, so swamped by fear is he, until Eve sinks down beside him and rests a warm and gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Boyd,” she says firmly, insistently. “Do you want me to translate?” Head still in his hands, he nods. “It’s a cascade of effects,” Eve quietly and patiently explains, “massive blood loss leads to hypothermia, and the blood’s ability to clot fails. Because there’s insufficient oxygen and other nutrients reaching the body’s systems, the cells begin to compensate, but by doing so they produce acidic compounds that damage organs and tissues, including the heart.”

She pauses and watches him intently for a moment; the way his fingers grip his hair even tighter, and the hunch of his shoulders as he seems to cave in on himself. This is not the strong, stubborn, fitfully boisterous leader she is so used to. The change, the anguish, is as alarming as it is understandable.  

“The CT scan shows major damage to her lungs, that her diaphragm is ruptured and that there is damage to some of the blood vessels in her chest.”

“So what happens now?” he asks, and he’s so eerily calm that Eve feels a prickle of cold fear run down her spine.

“They operate; it’s critical that the triad of blood loss, hypothermia and acidosis is reversed as soon as possible.” Eve knows there is no point in lying to him, in trying to make any of it easier to hear. He wants the truth, as hard as it is to take in.

“And then what?” Eve lifts her hands in a helpless gesture. What else is there to say? Boyd sits up and stares intently at her, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on hers. They are unfathomably deep, and she can clearly see every ounce of pain in him. Can see what, exactly, it will do to him if Grace dies. “Will she be ok?” His question presses heavily on her, and she tightens her grip on the blanket still wrapped firmly around her.

“I haven’t seen the scans Boyd, or the other test results, or what the monitors are reading. I really can’t tell you.”

“Eve.” He doesn’t blink, doesn’t say anything else. He simply holds her gaze and she feels the breath catch in the back of her throat, finds she can’t look away.”

“The odds aren’t in her favour,” she says at last, the words falling heavily between them, their weight a crushing, suffocating pressure on both of them. “She’s older, she was out there a long time and the sheer volume of blood loss…”

“So now we wait,” he mutters as she trails off, unable and unwilling to say more. Eve sighs despondently and nods. There is nothing else she, or indeed he, can do. So they sit there, on the cold, hard and exceedingly uncomfortable bench in the deserted hallway and they wait. They wait, and they hope. Desperately.

* * *

The squadroom that houses Esther Cohen’s team is light, airy and spacious. Due to the nature of their offices occupying a second floor corner of the building, windows run the length of two walls and even when, as it is now, the outside world in encased in the murky darkness of a cold and bitter autumn evening, the internal lights are so effective that the room still resembles a bright and cheerful sunny afternoon.

The occupants themselves however, are far less jovial. There is a low and continuous hum of activity; phones ring, notes are taken, computer monitors are hawkishly watched, and information is passed and shared with quick and detailed practiced ease. Everyone is intensely focused on the task at hand; everyone is intent on finding Philippa Baker.

There are flashes of the personal nature here and there though too, because no one on this team is a machine. They all think, they all feel and they all suffer for the job they do. Appropriately, therefore, there are quick calls and emails home, brief moments of contact with outside lives that remind them not all is lost, that humanity still lingers and is wonderful. There are other things too; the sneezing and coughing of a couple of early seasonal colds, the clatter of mugs and the crunch of biscuits as bodies are replenished, and the occasional joke or barb to keep the tension at bay.

The office is a hive of humanity amid the intensity of the unrelenting job they are doing. It is an atmosphere Esther has fostered, cultivated and carefully encouraged through the years she has been doing this work. The unbearable stress of cases like this one, chasing time to find a child who is undoubtedly being subjected to the worst possible torment while every minute they fail to find her falls steadily away, are bitingly destructive to the human soul. Anything and everything they can do to remind themselves that they are still a force for good, that they are still making a difference- she will make sure it is done.

In her office, with the blinds and the door wide open to the bullpen so she can observe, and be approached with absolute ease, she makes her own quick phone call; dialing home to speak to the other half of her heart. She’s tired, disheartened and knows they still have a long way to go before they find Philippa. But for just a few moments she lets herself check out of reality and listen to the warmest, most soothing tone she has ever know, and with the reassurance of love resting firmly in her heart, she bounds back out into the squadroom with fresh thoughts and ideas already forming in her mind.

* * *

Spence is still overseeing as the Forensics team dismantles the locker; he’s deep in conversation with the lead scientist about what they do and don’t know so far. Farther down the row of units Stella is attempting to interview the owner, but she is rapidly losing patience with the whole procedure and is struggling to rein in the increasingly irresistible temptation to slap him. Ferociously.

“Do you know what the man who rents that unit has done?” she suddenly snarls, leaning right in to Karl Bowen’s personal space; she towers over him, and in her rage appears just as fearsome as Boyd at his worst.

“No,” squeaks Karl, and its followed by a lot of embarrassed throat clearing, much squaring of his shoulders and antsy shifting from foot to foot. It’s fruitless posturing, an effort to reassert his masculinity. It won’t work. Stella is too angry with the situation, too worried about the missing girl, and too terrified for Grace to care what Bowen thinks or does.

“He abducted a fifteen year old girl and held her in that unit,” she tells him, and her suddenly unnervingly calm demeanor as she recounts all the facts stills him, makes him swallow in apprehension. “There’s blood, and evidence of torture,” she continues, just as steadily, her tone unwavering. Her eyes are icy, and she holds his gaze unblinkingly, staring down into his eyes like a hunter homing in on its prey.

“Philippa Baker- that’s her name- isn’t the first either. She’s number twelve. That’s a dozen little girls that have been kidnapped and tortured. Do you want to know what he does with them?” she asks, and her voice is so soft that if she weren’t leaning right into his face, he wouldn’t have a prayer of hearing her.

“No,” he manages to choke out, desperately trying to back away from her. There’s nowhere for him to go though; his back is firmly pressed against the wall between units one and two. Stella ignores his plea, continues on regardless.

“He plays with them,” she continues, and her voice is hypnotically terrifying now, her eyes full of a raging fire that is just waiting for an excuse to reach out and burn Bowen, to eat him alive for daring to be unhelpful. “He beats them. He rapes them. He strangles them, but only enough to subdue them. He repeats the process over and over. And eventually, when he gets tired or bored, he stabs them through the heart and dumps their bodies in the worst places imaginable. He leaves them to rot, leaves them to become infested with maggots and other insects that eat away the flesh and leave nothing recognisable for the families to identify. There is nothing left for them to mourn.”

She can smell the fear on him now; can see the wild tick of his eyes, the frantic need to escape. “You allowed him access here; you let him rent that unit under a false name. Do you know what that means? And what if he brought those other eleven girls here, hmm? That’s twelve abductions, twelve counts of beating, torturing and abusing young girls and so far, that’s eleven murders. All on your property.”

“I don’t know his name,” Bowen finally snaps at her. “He’s had that unit for years, and I don’t keep the paperwork here.”

“Then where do you keep it, you little shit?” she hisses.

“In my office. At home.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

He is mesmerised by her; utterly caught up in the spell she has woven around him. Her lips are a searing brand against his own, her skin is a siren call under his fingertips and the way she arches into him, breathlessly whispering his name drives him beyond any and all reason. He wants to spend eternity losing himself in her, the rest of his life with her curled in his arms, sleepy, sated and thoroughly snuggled against his chest.

Her fingers are idly running over his cheek, tracing his beard and sliding through his hair. He can feel her heart slowly calming under his palm, and he moves to kiss her neck, utterly intoxicated by the taste of her, the feel of her. Her hand slides to his shoulder, fingers lazily tracing the contours of muscle and it’s only for a fleeting second, but in the stream of bright sunlight creeping in through the gap in the curtains, his eyes pick out a tiny detail he has somehow missed until now.

His unhurried and meticulous exploration of her very temptingly soft skin abruptly abandoned, he rolls them both and captures her hand in his, turning it gently so he can carefully examine the inside of her wrist. Very thorough inspection and a lot of squinting confirm what he thought he saw a moment earlier. A very thin scar, so old and faint now as to be almost invisible, tracing the line of her radial artery.

He can’t breathe. His chest is suddenly so tight he cannot force himself to inhale. Her other hand is indolently roaming across his chest and he lets go of the first to catch it and look. It’s there, in the same place. The same well hidden old scar, the same terrifying implication. It’s impossible, surely. Not her. Not Grace. His Grace.

Her eyes open and she stares up at him. Deep, iridescent blue eyes that are still hazy with the languid aftermath of passion and desire. She smiles at him, and it breaks the spell holding him in its terrifying grip. He inhales deeply, still stunned, but now stubbornly refusing to believe it. She wouldn’t. Not Grace. No, she’s far too intelligent and unshakably, serenely calm to ever do that.

“What’s the matter?” her voice is soft, relaxed. Oblivious to the cause of his sudden turmoil. He tries to speak, but he can’t form the words. She sees it, and reaches a hand up to slowly and lazily caress the side of his face, her fingertips light and gentle. “What’s wrong, Peter?”

He can’t say it, he really can’t. The thought that she…

No!

Her eyes change, concern seeping deep into those beautiful sapphire irises as she gazes steadily at him.

“Talk to me,” she cajoles, and an edge of emotion that is layered in the distinctly worried is beginning to creep up on her now. Taking her hand in his, his grip very gentle, he traces the scar there and then looks at her, his eyes staring deep into hers.

“Oh,” she sighs, “that.”

He easily sees the flare of deep, pervading sadness as flashes of memory flit through her mind and she recalls events leading up to that chapter of her life.

“Grace,” he whispers, finally finding his voice again. “You didn’t…”

He can’t take it in. It just seems too impossible that she would ever be, or have been, in the kind of emotional place where she would resort to that. He’s still half waiting for her to deny it, even though his eyes have seen the evidence. She abruptly shatters his illusions.

“I did,” she confirms quietly, and her hand is tracing his face again, her fingers sliding slowly and idly through his beard.

“When?” he asks, his voice so low it’s barely audible.

“December the seventh, 1992,” she replies softly, eyes closing for a moment before she focuses on his shoulder, not quite able to look him in the eye.

“Your birthday,” he whispers, appalled. She nods, almost imperceptibly, still determinedly occupied with gazing at the tiny cluster of freckles on his shoulder, tracing each and every one with her fingertip.

“Grace,” his voice is hoarse. He feels like he is drowning in some kind of terrible alternate reality. This cannot possibly be real. “Why?” he chokes out. There is a long sigh from her, and she blinks, but keeps her gaze resolutely away from his eyes.

“Because I realised that, as impossible as it seemed, life was moving on without her and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Not personally. I knew all the psychological theories and processes behind grief- I’d helped countless people deal with their own- but I couldn’t apply the same to myself.” She pauses and takes a deep, cleansing breath, recovering her equilibrium.

“It was just a little thing that pushed me over,” she tells him, lost in the vivid memory that, so many years later, is every bit as clear as the day it happened. “I was walking home, and I passed a book shop. In the window was her favourite book, and all I could think was that I was never going to read it to her again. As soon as I got home I took the blade out of Alan’s razor and locked myself in the bathroom.” Her tone is matter of fact as she relays the painful memories, as if she is describing someone else’s actions rather than her own. It sends chills down his spine, but they pale in comparison to how her following statement hits him.

“It was such a relief; I can’t even begin to describe what it felt like to sit there on the floor and fade out with the blood loss.” She is thoughtful as she remembers now, and he is thoroughly terrified. Terrified, but held utterly spellbound in the grip of her story. Terrified because he can’t imagine a world without her in it, horrified because he can’t imagine his life without her there with him, and completely, totally and absolutely guilt ridden, because he entertained similar thoughts about the point of his life not too long ago.

Grace isn’t finished with her explanation, and he can feel a wave of sickness building in his stomach as the truth of what she is saying presses down on him like walls closing in, cutting off his air.

“I’ve spent so much time working with trauma victims and understanding the way their memories of events shaped their lives that I’ve always thought it should be one of those things I shouldn’t be able to remember clearly. That I should only remember part of it, or some bits that were twisted and warped by my emotions and by time. But I can. I can remember every second of it. I can remember in vivid detail what it felt like to slide the blade over my skin and how sleepy and empty I was as I lay there, watching the blood pool on the floor. It ruined the carpet. My husband was so angry.”

Boyd chokes at that; his fury rising instantly and hotly, his grip on her wrist accidently tightening as he stares at her in disbelief. Pulled back to reality, Grace is appalled; horrified by what she has said.

“I’m sorry,” she apologises, seeing the expression on his face.

“What for?” he wants to know, relaxing a little as she runs tender fingers though his hair, soothing him.

“I didn’t mean to say all of that; I know it’s horrible to hear.” She pauses for a moment, studying him carefully, holding his gaze. His hand sketches her features, rests against the side of her face, and she turns her head slightly, softly kissing his palm. He leans down, lips brushing her forehead before his cheek rests against hers. Her arms curl around him and she sighs quietly. “Actually, I've never said that to anyone before,” she admits after a while. “Not in a non-professional setting anyway.”

“You talked about it with patients?” he asks, incredulous. She laughs gently, shakes her head as he leans back and stares at her.

“Of course not. I was the patient.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah- it’s pretty grim playing counsellor to a fellow psychologist,” she muses. He’s quiet for a moment, before asking the question that’s really bothering him.

“Who found you?” Grace sighs heavily.

“My mother. She was worried about me; it had been three months since Kally died and I was… functioning… I suppose, but not living. Just existing. Alan was away on a business trip and she didn’t want me to be alone.”

“What happened?” Resting on one elbow he returns to delicately outlining her features with the fingertips of his other hand. Leaning in to his touch, she holds his gaze steadily.

“I woke up in a private hospital; my mother was an eminently practical person, she knew what the consequences for my career would be if it got out. I was consulting for the police fairly regularly, and there’s always some overzealous defence attorney out there waiting to rip the reputation of an expert witness to shreds.”

He nods in understanding; it’s happened to them all over the years. Grace’s expression is reflective as she looks up at him, before a smile washes over her face.

“You’d have liked my mother,” she tells him with a grin. “She was just your kind of person; direct, stubborn, wouldn’t take no for an answer and she had a great sense of humour.” He laughs and she leans up to kiss him gently, her lips lingering over his for a lot longer than she intended; it’s so, so easy to get lost in him. When they finally pull apart she can clearly see the same thought reflected back at her in his deep, dark eyes.

“So then what happened?” he asks eventually, because now they’ve come this far, he just has to know. He’s lying back now, and she’s curled into his chest, her head on his shoulder and her hand running slowly over his arm while he holds her securely against him, relishing the warm comfort of her.

“They kept me in for a while - I don’t remember how long, days or weeks, I have no idea - and dragged me to therapy. I learned, eventually, to live with it.” The words are tinged with a bitterness he has become all too familiar with in his own right over the last few months.

“I don’t remember much about being there. I don’t remember going home, just that I was there one day and Alan was… distant.”

“Distant?” Boyd can feel the tension in that one word, and he just knows he isn’t going to like hearing the rest of this story.

“He was angry with everyone and everything, and he had no idea how to express himself. No idea how to grieve. It’s easy to say with hindsight where we went wrong, but because we loved and trusted one another, we allowed ourselves to get angry with each other. He hated that he wasn’t there when she died, and that I was. And he resented the fact that I had tried to escape it all. He was angry at everything, and nothing in particular. We loved each other, but we hated each other as well.” He tone is level and calm, but layered with sadness and regret.

“How did you get past it?” he wants to know, wondering if she can share some wisdom about learning to cope with grief. He feels her heavy sigh against his chest and when she speaks again, he flinches slightly at the depth of remorse and shame in her voice.

“We didn’t.” She takes a deep, steadying breath and lets it out slowly. “Six months later he was dead.” Another long, slow breath as memory sparks in her mind. “The police were convinced it was an accident; late at night, rain, a tight bend in the road, reduced visibility… I didn’t believe them. I still don’t.”

His arms tighten, holding her closer and she curls herself further into him, seeking and taking comfort in his strong, deliberately protective embrace.

“Why don’t you believe it was an accident?” his investigative nature wants to know.

“When I met him, Alan was a racing driver. He was reckless, and a wild child, but he was an excellent driver. He took that road often, in all weathers and at all times of the day or night. There’s no way he lost control of his car.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against her hair, one hand moving in slow, soothing circles over her back.

The terrible sadness of the situation claws at him, needles his heart. His relationship with Luke may not have been what either of them wanted, but he did at least get to see his son grow up. Kally was only six when she died; Grace must have spent years wondering how she would have grown, what sort of person she would have become.

And he at least chose to accept that his marriage was over. He and Mary chose divorce, as bitter and angry as it was. Grace didn’t have that choice either.

* * *

The trip to Karl Bowen’s house is silent; Stella rides in the front and Bowen in the back as a uniformed officer drives them swiftly and surely through the twisting back streets of an estate Stella has never set foot in, and from the looks of things never wants to either.

Soon though, they are firmly back in the suburbs of the lower middle classes, and eventually they draw to a halt outside a modest, slightly aged but boringly normal, semidetached family home complete with a child’s swing and a collection of rather overly colourful garden gnomes.

Inside is much the same; it’s just gone half past nine and Bowen’s wife is trying to shepherd three lively young children off to bed while two very small dogs wrestle with something dark grey and much larger than they are. Predictably, the appearance of two police officers only makes the chaos worse. The children want to know what is happening, the dogs weave crazily between every pair of legs they can, barking continuously, until the wife trips and falls heavily into PC Williams, and smoke drifts slowly from the kitchen door as Bowen’s dinner, which has been left to keep warm in the oven for far too long now, finally gives up on maintaining the last shred of its former edible status and moves on to something more akin to a completely charred ruin.

The smoke alarm triggers, its piercingly shrill sound assaulting everyone’s eardrums, and Stella clenches her jaw to stop from grinding her teeth as the children start to scream, Mrs. Bowen bellows at the top of her lungs as she struggles to her feet and Karl Bowen ducks quickly out of the hall and into the kitchen, PC Williams right behind him in case he fancies the good old fashioned trick of legging it out the back door.

Teeth still firmly gritted, Stella glares at the three children; immediately they are silenced and, eyes wide, they scuttle up the stairs and presumably off to their respective bedrooms, if the rapid closing of doors is an indication to be believed.

With the smoke alarm finally silenced, and the unidentifiable remains of whatever was in the oven now soaking in the sink, Karl Bowen leads the two officers through to the disaster ridden family room where there is a large desk occupying one corner and beside it an overflowing filing cabinet. His wife is fluttering along behind him, wittering away at everything from the state of the house to the bitterly cold weather. When she moves on to berating her husband for suddenly rushing off in the middle of dinner without telling her where or why he was going, Stella can bare it no longer and suggests, as politely as she possibly can, that the children might need checking on.

Completely thrown, Mrs. Bowen gapes at her for a moment, before nodding in agreement and sweeping out of the room, mercifully taking the two enthusiastically scrapping dogs with her. Before they can come charging back in, PC Williams shuts the door and Stella shoots him an exceedingly grateful glance.

“This could take a while,” Bowen says subduedly, indicating the chaotic mess of files that are clearly several years beyond any attempt to organise them.

“Better get started then,” replies Stella, fresh out of patience with all the dithering.

* * *

Boyd has been silent for a long, long time now and it’s starting to worry Eve. True she hasn’t said a word either since just after Doctor Wallace spoke to them both, but the silence from Boyd is really bothering her. He’s not the most talkative of men, but he isn’t the silent type either. And the completely uncharacteristic way he has been sitting, stock still and staring into some far off unseen place, is slowly eroding the very last of Eve’s quiet composure.

That she has barely moved for a long time now is also true, but she isn’t given to explosive fits of uncontrolled temper accompanied by frenetic pacing and sharp, staccato bursts of shouting. And if there’s anything she thinks might give her some shred of comfort right now, it would be seeing Boyd leap into furious action, raging passionately against something wholly beyond his control.

Instead they only sit there, each locked into their own thoughts and memories. Waiting. Still waiting.

* * *

The beginnings of the headache that Esther had earlier in the day are getting worse the longer the night drags on, but the team finally has a development. Her more technologically inclined officers have located Higgins on CCTV near both Finchley Cemetery and the storage unit. They have clearly identifiable footage of him on foot before he gets in his vehicle, for which they also now have a detailed description circulating with any and all officers out on the streets tonight. If the van is out there, sooner or later they will find it.

Her phone rings, and Boyd’s DI, Spencer Jordan, informs her that there is nothing at the unit that will help them find Philippa. She thanks him, and when he offers help, she politely declines, but asks to be kept informed about Doctor Foley. It’s not vanity, or petty political inter-office squabbling that leads her to refuse Spender’s offer of help. Quite the contrary in fact; Spencer is of far more use in his own unit. When they find the girl and arrest Higgins, the majority of the burden of proof of his crimes is going to fall squarely on the CCU and the work they have done up to this point.

Chasing a couple of ibuprofen down with a swig of long since cold coffee, Esther stares contemplatively out of the windows into the dark evening beyond. A myriad of thoughts are tumbling through her mind as she struggles to fit the pieces of the jigsaw together in any meaningful order. Where would he have taken the girl? Why did he move her in the first place? An exclamation of triumph draws her attention back to her left and she focuses again on the monitors her techies are using to track the journey of Higgins van. Maybe they finally have a breakthrough.

* * *

Stella is about thirty seconds from strangling Bowen when he finally, after more than an hour of digging laboriously and vocally through piles and piles of crumpled and dirty files, produces a folder marked with the unit number that Higgins has been renting.

“Here you go,” he says, and his tone is so oily and pleading that Stella literally has to lock her hands behind her back. He opens the file and scans the pages. “Unit’s been rented out for over ten years now to the same guy. A Mr. Bernard Pierce. Got a photo of his identification here on his rental agreement,” Bowen holds up a photocopy and Stella takes it, along with a scowl of impatience.

It’s Higgins picture indeed, but not his information, though something about the details printed on the page niggle at the back of Stella’s mind.

“Take the whole file,” sighs Bowen, thrusting the entire thing at Stella. “I’d like it back mind, when you’re done, for my tax records and all that, but you can keep it for now if it helps.” His earlier uncooperative nature seems to have seeped slowly out of him, the longer they have been in his house, disrupting his evening. It’s obvious to Stella and PC Williams that he wants them to leave, and leave soon.

“Thank you,” Stella says politely, closing the file and tucking it under her arm.

“Is that it then?” Bowen asks, a relieved expression creeping across his face. “Are we done here?”

“Yes, I think we are,” agrees Stella, and with a savage grin she nods at PC Williams who turns to face Bowen while simultaneously reaching for his handcuffs. They might be done with the search for records, but they are certainly not done with Mr. Bowen.

“Karl Bowen, I am arresting you on suspicion of-”

The roar of frustration that fills the air around them is enough to set the dogs barking again and wake up the children, whose small feet can suddenly be heard pounding along the upstairs landing. Stella smiles in grim satisfaction as she walks back outside; Karl Bowen may well end up being released without charge, but keeping him in the cells for a night will ease some of the frustration his hindrance has caused her tonight.

* * *

When Stella makes it back to CCHQ, Spence is already there. He’s standing in front of the board, staring at the words and pictures as though they hold all the answers he is looking for.

“Have you heard anything?” asks Stella, forgoing any sort of greeting as she slips out of her coat and slides gratefully into her chair, spreading the pages of Higgins rental agreement out before her.

“Nothing,” he shakes his head. “I was about to give up and go to the hospital actually,” he admits.

When Stella says nothing, he turns to look at her. Her attention is firmly fixed on the file, her lips moving silently as she reads through the information there, searching for the answer she can feel is just out of reach.

“You found something?” asks Spence, moving to peer over her shoulder.

“Not yet, but it’s there, I know it is.” Stella gets to her feet again and moves to the coffee maker. It’s a soothing process that occupies her hands while her mind wanders. Spence abandons any attempt of talking to her and makes his way back to the board, filling in a few new details while the smell of fresh coffee fills the room.

He jumps, thoroughly startled, when Stella suddenly slams her mug down onto the counter and races across the room, searching frantically through the stack of files and information they have slowly and painstakingly gathered on Higgins.

“I knew it,” she shouts, brandishing a page at Spence.

“Knew what?” he asks, somewhat mystified by her rather erratic behaviour.

“Bernard Jeremy Pierce, the name Higgins used on his rental agreement. I knew I’d heard that name before. I was right, it’s in here,” she waves the file to further underscore her point, and the excitement is still crackling through her as Spencer raises his hands, unaware of what she is getting at. Stella thrusts the information at him before hurrying over to her computer and sitting down to run a search.

“Bernard Jeremy Pierce is Higgins maternal grandfather. He died fifteen years ago, but if Higgins is still using his identity, maybe he’s using it somewhere else too! I’m running a search on the name.”

“But surely if he’s dead, everything in his estate will have passed to whatever beneficiaries there were.”

“It’s worth a try,” she insists, “what else have we got to go on?”

“True,” he sighs, and taps his fingers impatiently as the computer hums and searches and they wait. Patiently. More or less.

“Oh my God,” breathes Stella, as the results appear on the screen. Bernard Pierce owned, and apparently still owns, a small farm on the very edge of the city.

“Call Esther,” Spence tells her. “You found it, you tell her. Great job Stella.”


	5. Chapter 5

It’s warm, the sun is shining, and there are fluffy white clouds in the sky. It’s the sort of summery day that is so often in short supply in England, and the two of them are wandering together through a graveyard. Grace is leading him though a tangle of headstones, her hand firmly caught in his. She takes him to a small, simple stone engraved with just a few words that rests quietly and peacefully in the dappled shade of a mighty oak. The flowers in her other hand she places quietly, before straightening beside him, never once letting go of him.

Still keeping her fingers tangled with his, he shifts slightly and wraps his arms around her, her back against his chest as he gazes over her shoulder at the grave of her child. They stand quietly for a long time, each remembering, each wondering.

“Thank you,” he murmurs eventually, and when she tilts her head slightly to look up at him, he smiles softly down at her. “For bringing me here, for sharing your memories with me. For listening to mine.”

It is one of the ways she has helped him immeasurably over the last few months. They talk, all the time. Not about his emotions, or how he’s feeling - she’s not his therapist and she would never want to be - but about his memories of Luke. The good and the bad, all of it. Everything he can think of, and everything he thought he had forgotten.

She told him something invaluable, something he’s treasured ever since; Luke might be gone, but as long as he holds on to those memories, he will always carry a part of his son with him. When Kally died, she said, no one would talk about her, as if remembering her would make the pain worse. But by shutting her out, they were just making the tragedy that much more impossible to accept.

“How do you do it Grace?” he asks suddenly, as they start to walk again. “How do you still care so much, when you've lost so much?” She sighs deeply, considering his question.

“Time, I suppose, a lot of it. And bitter experience.” She is quiet for a while, and Boyd assumes that is the end of the conversation, until she speaks again, and there is a lot of reflectivity, and a faint trace of regret in her voice.

“For a long time I thought that losing Kally was my punishment- I’d made a choice, long before she was even born, and somehow that made me unfit, or undeserving, to be a mother.”

“Grace,” he interrupts her before she can go on, and his expression is a mix of horrified disbelief and that iron-willed argumentativeness that suggests he is about to spend as long as he needs to convincing her otherwise. She places a gentle hand on his arm, calming him.

“You know as well as I do that grief is irrational,” she reminds him, and he sighs, slowly relaxing, and nods in agreement. “It took years - and a lot of therapy - before I let go of that particular guilt.”

They meander through the graves; steadily but rather aimlessly, taking in the peace and tranquility of the cemetery and luxuriating in the warmth of the sun.

“I had almost given up on love, on ever having a child, before I met Alan,” Grace continues, clearly lost in thought. “After Harry, I had a few relationships, but they all ended in disaster. My mother was furious when I brought Alan home for the first time; a racing driver - yet another wild, untamed bad boy, she yelled at me. Hadn’t I learned anything from the maverick police officer and the half crazy army boy? Or the daredevil film maker? When was I going to settle down and find somebody sensible?”

“What happened?”

“Oh, she fell for Alan. He was charming, and funny and very good at making people feel at ease. He retired from racing soon after too. He had an eye condition that had deteriorated to the point where it wasn’t safe anymore, and he joined his father’s business. And then we had Kally, and suddenly the world was perfect. And it stayed perfect, for nearly seven years.”

The arm that has found its way around her shoulders tightens, holding her closer. She leans into him slightly, quietly taking strength from him while giving it back at the same time. It strikes him that he’d do anything for her, anything to hold on to her. To love her.

“Can I take you somewhere?” he asks, “I want to show you something.”

* * *

It’s a long, tense journey to the farm and Esther spends it in the back of the van containing the hastily requisitioned tactical unit, pouring over the blueprints for the farm they have spent precious time procuring in the hope that if Higgins is holding Philippa there, they will be at less of a disadvantage as they go in trying to get her.

When they arrive, they are faced with the long serpentine driveway that leads to the main buildings of the property. It’s obscured by vast amounts of wildly overgrown shrubbery and rows of apple trees that give them decent cover as they approach. The plans have been formalised and the men have been briefed by the time the van comes to a halt, as close as possible without risking detection. Communications and equipment are checked, each member of the unit nods their readiness and the final ok is given.

They sweep across the property from one side to the other, clearing the closest of the outbuildings first as they approach the house. It seems the most likely place for Higgins to be holed up in, and eventually it is the only building left to be searched. Windows checked, and entry and exit points secure, members of the unit move inside.

Esther remains by the car with the commander, listening to the click of radios and the sound of hushed voices reporting methodically back. The ground floor is cleared; no one is there. The same is true of the upper stories of the house.

“What about the cellar?” murmurs Esther, and it quickly becomes clear that the team are struggling to locate the entrance. “It’s about ten feet to the left of the kitchen door on the map,” she points out, and the commander relays the information to his team. The two of them stand in tense silence until reports come back that nothing is visible. The tactical officers are searching for another entrance to the cellar when three distinct shots can be heard, both over the radio and in the cold, still night air.

Esther makes an automatic move forward before she catches herself; there is a long and extremely tense wait for both her and the man beside her, who is clearly wondering if he has lost any men as he nervously rakes a hand through the scant inch of graying hair that is already sticking up in defiant, unruly tufts. Radio static crackles in the frosty haze that is hanging in air around them and Esther shivers as the cold presses heavily about her. Time is moving incredibly slowly, yet she can see the way the mist is thickening around them. Winter is well and truly on its way.

“Suspect disarmed,” crackles into the night, and they stare at each other, wondering what else is not being said.

“Building secure,” is the next thing they hear, and then both of them are running for the house, desperate to find out more.

* * *

Eve sees Spencer and Stella approach the bench which she and Boyd have still yet to vacate, and gets stiffly and sluggishly to her feet before walking toward them.

They’ve got coffee, which she takes with truly grateful thanks and sips slowly, her eyes momentarily closing in relief.

“What’s happening?” Spence wants to know.

“They took her for surgery not long ago,” she tells them.

“Really?” he glances down at his watch and frowns. Eve understands - it’s been hours since they found Grace now - but he won’t like the answer.

“They’ve been trying to keep her alive long enough to get her there Spence,” she explains quietly.

“Is she going to die?” asks Stella, and her voice is raw and choked. Spencer closes his eyes as he swipes a hand over his face; his shoulders are tense and his expression is fraught with distress. He’s worked with Grace longer than both of them, and it is no secret he idolises her, thinks the world of her.

“They don’t know,” replies Eve, as gently as she possibly can.

* * *

Esther watches with grim satisfaction as Higgins is secured in the back of a police vehicle for transport.

“No one from the CCU is to have contact with him,” she orders the officer in charge of taking Higgins to detention. “Especially not DSI Peter Boyd, or DI Spencer Jordan.”

“Yes Ma’am,” nods the officer.

Esther knows Boyd very well, she has done for years. She knows all about his overly protective streak when it comes to his team members, and one team member in particular. And she heard the same protectiveness in the devastated tones of DI Jordan’s voice when he informed her about Higgins attack on Doctor Foley. She doesn’t think either of them would be stupid enough to jeopardise their case, or careers, but she isn’t willing to take the chance either. Especially not if Grace doesn’t recover. James Higgins will see his day in court.

She’s exhausted, and it shows in the harsh and unforgiving glare of the flashing blue lights of the ambulance as it pulls away, taking the unconscious Philippa Baker to hospital. They found the girl alive and relatively unharmed, in comparison with Higgins other victims at least, but unresponsive. Paramedics quickly diagnosed hypoglycemia and assured Esther the condition would be easily treatable. Assuming no complications arise from the episode, there should be no lasting physical damage and she should make a full recovery. She turns that phrase over in her mind as she remembers them telling her. But as she watches the blue lights make their way down the drive, Esther can’t help but think the physical ordeal is likely to be the least of Philippa Baker’s problems from now on.

* * *

“I used to bring Luke here,” Boyd tells her as they spread the blanket from the boot of her car on the grass and settle down to eat the picnic lunch hastily acquired from the nearest supermarket’s meal deal shelves. “Football practice,” he continues, and looks out over the pitches, fields and playground spread out before them. They are sitting beneath a row of trees on the edge of the grounds; far enough from anyone else to give them peace, quiet and a chance to talk uninterrupted as children play in the distance and parents watch, gossiping among themselves.

“He loved it. So did I. He was mad about football. Played in a club here at the weekends; I came to every one of his matches.”

He points towards the nearest side line of the football pitch. “I used to stand over there and watch, cheering him on.”

Grace is gazing at him, quietly observing the way his face relaxes as he remembers happy times, good memories. It makes him look younger and healthier by far, the heavy weight of grief and responsibility temporarily lifted, especially with the dappled sunlight streaming down on them through the leaves of the trees.

Sliding her feet out of her shoes, Grace settles herself back against the trunk of a large tree, considering the view as they work their way through their lunch. The park is nice - quite picturesque really - and the playing children are lovely in their enthusiasm and youthful innocence. But it’s the man lounging indolently across the blanket next to her who really holds her attention.

It’s only been a few months, but already she can’t imagine letting go of him, can’t fathom a future without him in it. It scares her occasionally; she’s not given to flights of fancy, or fairytale beliefs, but there is something about him, as damaged, anguished and unpredictable as he is, that has drawn her in and holds her tightly fast.

He looks over at her and smiles, their gazes locking, and she can feel the whole world simply fall away; there is only the two of them and the intensity of their connection, the depth of their understanding of each other. His hand reaches out and captures hers, his fingers sliding firmly, unmistakably over and between hers as he lifts their joined hands and kisses the back of hers, his lips the lightest of brushes over her skin.

They remain transfixed in their intimate world, unspoken words flying back and forth in their gazes until a wildly errant tennis balls bounces nearby and rolls into their small camp. Boyd grins openly at her for a second, and it’s wild and feral and so full of pure, unfiltered emotion that for a moment she’s utterly arrested by the sight. And then he glances down, scoops up the ball and, sitting up slightly, lobs it back the way it came.

She watches the way the muscles of his arm ripple and flex so effortlessly, absolutely and unashamedly intrigued by the movement. There is a faint shout of thanks from the distant tennis players, and then Boyd turns his attention back to their lunch, the moment definitively broken.

“I used to bring Kally here too,” she finally tells him, closing her eyes as a sudden, powerful rush of memory washes over her, images forming inside her mind with vivid detail and clarity. “The pond over there,” her hand lifts and she gestures vaguely in the right direction, “We fed the ducks. She loved ducks. They were her favourite animal. We would sit for hours on the bench watching them and she’d always end up eating half the bread we'd brought with us.”

He studies her, entranced, as she rests her head on the tree trunk, eyes closed, revisiting moments of such happiness. There is a tinge of sadness in her expression, but it does not detract from her memories. He envies her that, and hopes he will eventually get there too. She looks serene, content and very beautiful, and he instinctively reaches out a hand, resting his warm palm against her leg, taking comfort and pleasure in her proximity. She sighs softly, happily, and stretches out her arm, her fingers sliding through his hair; it’s an exquisite sensation he’s coveted since that very first evening they spent together.

She’s good for him, he knows that, and he’s starting to believe that maybe he’s good for her too. He also knows though, that there’s no going back. Now that she’s firmly part of his life, he doesn’t think he could live without her. Wouldn’t want to. Ever.

“I still don’t know how you do it,” he sighs, gazing up at her as she leans back against the tree. “How you find it in you to keep going, to… maintain that sense of purpose.”

“You do still care Peter,” she assures him, knowing exactly what he isn’t saying with his question, and as she stares down at him, her gaze is so intense he can feel her words, not just hear them.

“How do you know that?” he asks, wishing he could be so sure.

“Do you love me?” she asks, softly, quietly.

“You know I do,” he replies, just as tenderly, reaching out to trace his fingers along the bare skin of her arm.

“There's your answer then,” she points out. He gapes at her, stunned, but says nothing, so she continues.

“If someone told you on Monday that you have six months to prove the worth and the effectiveness and the point of the CCU, what would you do?”

“Fight like hell to prove it,” he answers automatically, and he knows he’s right.

“Why?”

“Because we make a difference. Maybe only to a few people sometimes, but we do make a difference.”

“Exactly. You do care Peter, you do care.”

She’s smiling down at him, but it’s not triumphant, because she’s finally won the argument, no, it’s understanding, and it touches him deeply. He reaches for her, pulls her gently down beside him, into his arms, where he can gaze into her eyes, study her.

“You are an outrageously wise woman, Grace,” he tells her at last, and she just smiles and leans into his kiss.

* * *

Stella is pacing the corridor, her distress and worry manifesting itself as nervous energy. Every time she turns to walk back up the hallway, she glances at Boyd, who is still sitting in the same position he was when she arrived, and then at Eve, who has returned to her seat beside him. She is slumped wearily against the wall, still hugging her blanket tightly to her body and looking thoroughly overwhelmed and defeated. It’s not something Stella has ever seen before in the woman who is so awe-inspiringly, unshakably calm and steady. It’s a terrifying realisation to know that Eve is so emotionally wrought by the situation. She’s a doctor, she knows what Grace is facing, and her fear is the only indicator Stella needs to understand just how bad the situation really is.

Stella can’t imagine the CCU without Grace; without her warmth, her wicked and sometimes impish sense of humour, and her gritty determination that frequently sees her toe to toe with Boyd, defiantly giving as good as she gets in the midst of a furiously raging storm that would flatten even the most argumentative and strong-willed of souls.

She also can’t see Boyd coping without her. The two of them are so perfectly suited to each other it’s ridiculous. Running a shaky hand through her hair in frustration, a thought occurs to her. How did Higgins know Grace was going to be at the graveyard? And why did he even go after her anyway? She’s so far removed from his usual victim type that if it weren’t for the voice message they listened to over and over she wouldn’t have believed it.

She thinks about that message; they all listened to it again and again in the lab, but did they really listen to what was being said, or were they distracted by what they could learn from what else could be heard?

_“plan revenge too,”_

_“I had nothing to do with your conviction,”_

_“Oh, I know that… but Boyd did.”_

_“How?”_

The words echo in her mind, and she takes a deep breath, halting mid pace and leaning back against the wall as her thoughts swirl. Boyd wasn’t involved with the operation that took down the international crime ring Higgins was tangled up with and duly imprisoned for. So why did Higgins think Boyd had something to do with his prior conviction?

* * *

Spence is feeling every long and exhausting minute of the interminable day as he walks back toward where he left his fellow teammates. He’s armed with food, because god knows how many hours have passed since any of them last ate anything, and he’s fighting a losing internal battle, desperately trying to keep a grip on his emotions.

The girls thank him for the food, but no one says anything as the wait drags on. Stella has her lost in thought face on, and he can tell she’s puzzling through something. He’s envious, because whatever it is, it’s keeping her mind busy, keeping her occupied. Eve prods Boyd into eating, but stays quiet too. She looks a little better for a meal though, even one of dubious origins hastily appropriated from the hospital canteen; there’s a slight amount of colour slowly returning to her cheeks, and the trembling in her hands she hadn’t seemed to have noticed has finally stilled.

Boyd has said nothing since Spencer and Stella arrived at the hospital, when he asked for an update and any news from Esther’s team. It’s unnerving. True, Boyd isn’t known for being particularly talkative, especially not in an idle chatter kind of way, but the stunned, tense silence of the man as he just continues to sit on the bench and wait is a whole lot more than faintly unsettling.

Unable to deal with the silence and the tension, Spencer retraces his steps to the next hallway, where he takes refuge in the men’s toilets. Running the cold tap, he gathers water in his hands and splashes it on his face, trying desperately to wash away the stress of the day.

* * *

Midnight has long since been and gone when Esther makes her way into the second hospital she has visited that night, the image of Philippa Baker's overwhelmingly relieved parents still burning in her eyes. It takes her a little while, but eventually she finds Boyd and his team. It is the young DC who spots her first.

“Did you find her?” Stella asks instantly. The others look up the moment they hear her voice, their attention suddenly riveted on her. Boyd gets slowly and unsteadily to his feet; he looks as old and battle worn as Esther feels. His eyes though, they are another story. The level of torment there is staggering.

“She’s alive,” Esther confirms with a weary smile. “She was unconscious when we found her; the medics said her blood sugar was catastrophically low because she’s had no food since before he took her, but she will be ok.”

“And Higgins?” demands Boyd, and Esther can clearly see the raging fury in him.

“Arrested,” she informs them. “He took a few shots at the tactical team, managed to put a bullet in the bicep of one of the officers before they subdued him. I’ll be interviewing him in the morning. After I get some sleep. And no, I’m not inviting any of you.” Esther sees Eve’s slight, understanding smile, and the furious scowls identically marking the faces of Boyd, Spencer and Stella.

“You did good work today,” she tells all of them. “Especially you, DC Goodman. Your recognising that name probably made the difference between us finding Philippa Baker alive and recovering her body a couple of weeks from now. Well done.”

For a moment she holds Boyd’s gaze, and raises an eyebrow. He nods and follows her down the hallway, out of earshot of the others.

“Is she still in surgery?” she asks softly, and Boyd nods, slowly and heavily.

“Yeah.”

“How long?” asks Esther, resting a comforting hand on his arm. He knows exactly what she’s asking.

“Months now,” he replies, quietly but with a hint of a smile as he thinks of her and their life outside work.

“I’m glad,” replies Esther, and she means it. “Any idiot can see you two are supposed to be together.”

“What if…” he starts and Esther shakes her head, squeezes his arm.

“Grace is far too stubborn to die Peter,” she tells him, and she believes it too. “Anyone willing to put up with you would have to be.” He laughs for the first time in days; it’s sharp and short-lived, but it breaks the tension and momentarily makes him feel just a little bit better.

“Do you want me to stay?” she offers, and he shakes his head.

“Thank you, but no.”

“Ok,” she nods in understanding.

“It could be hours,” he sighs, gesturing helplessly. “They haven’t told us anything.”

“Don’t forget that you need to rest at some point too,” she reminds him. He nods absently, his mind already having moved on to other things. The assault of images he has been fighting off for hours by immersing himself in memories. Now though, they are back, and he is caught in the swirling, horrifying pressure of them as they batter his mind and senses.

“Peter?” asks Esther, her concern suddenly stepping up several notches as she sees the way he has faded away from her, from their conversation. His expression is tortured, his eyes seeing something far away.

“There was so much blood,” he whispers, not hearing her. “She was covered in it.” Esther doesn’t doubt him- she’s seen his clothes, and Eve’s and Stella’s. She knows how bad the implications are. But she also has faith, a lot of it.

“Peter,” she says again, more firmly this time as she squeezes his arm again, applying enough pressure to force him out of whatever terrible place he is locked in and back to reality. He looks at her, and his eyes are clear and in the present as he takes a deep, trembling breath.

“He stabbed her three times Esther,” he chokes out, “three times in the chest. And he left her to bleed to death alone in a graveyard.”

Esther closes her eyes for a moment, trying to banish the thoughts and images now assailing her own mind.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” she asks, worriedly. And right before her eyes, he squares his shoulders, takes a deep, deep breath and slowly lets it out again, pulling himself firmly together. Classic Peter Boyd reaction. She's seen it so many times over the years.

“Positive,” he replies, firmly. “Sorry about that, I’m just-“

“Overwhelmed? Stressed? Exhausted?” she suggests lightly. He allows a hint of a tiny, crooked smile.

“All of the above!”

“Text me as soon as you know anything,” she tells him firmly, and he nods in agreement. “And if there’s anything I can do Peter, anything at all, just ask ok?”

He nods again, and she steps forward, hugging him tightly. It’s been a long and rocky road since they first started out in training together, but he’s one of her best friends and she’d go to the ends of the earth to help him, just like he would for her.

* * *

Clustered together by the bench, Eve, Stella and Spencer are observing the exchange between Boyd and Esther while trying not to openly stare at them. When the two embrace, Spence can’t help but wonder.

“Are they-” he begins.

“No,” Eve and Stella instantly and simultaneously interrupt. They lock gazes, each wondering what the other knows. Spencer’s eyes flick between the two of them and their sudden staring contest.

“Am I missing something here?” he wonders, a little hesitantly.

“Yes,” is the answer, and it is just as quick, and just as concurrently delivered.

“What?” he wants to know. The two women, having reached a silent understanding, turn to look at him.

“Boyd’s already taken,” Stella explains.

“He is?” Spence is unsure, glancing quickly over at their boss before looking back at his two teammates and raising an eyebrow in dubious uncertainty.

“Honestly Spence,” sighs Eve. “You call yourself a detective…”


	6. Chapter 6

The tension and the silence return as Esther leaves and they once again have nothing to do but wait. There’s no clock in the hall, and there are no windows either. Nothing to mark the passage of time. It could be minutes they sit there, or hours, or even days; it feels much the same. Stella isn’t sure she’s ever seen Boyd sit so still for so long. Even when he’s trapped behind his desk with mountains of paperwork he emerges frequently, in need of physical movement to let off some of his pent up energy. The unnatural stillness of him now is disturbing.

Eve isn’t helping; she’s once again calm and utterly controlled. Sitting silently beside Boyd, she has vanished inside herself, her earlier emotional distress now completely internalised to the point where she’s not even communicating with those around her.

Spencer might be even worse though; he’s alternating between pacing rhythmically up and down the hallway and then sitting for a few minutes beside her, fidgeting for England when he does. Stella is sure she’s either very nearly about to spectacularly lose her temper with him or simply have to resort to ordering him to go and fetch more coffee just to provide a little relief from the uncontrolled disjointed movement when the double doors let out a pneumatic hiss and _finally_ swing slowly open.

Boyd moves so fast that Stella is quite genuinely stunned; he's on his feet and striding toward them before the others have even looked up from the walls or floor they have so intently been studying.

Doctor Wallace is there, looking slightly disheveled and in need of a good meal, but his eyes are kind and very telling.

“She’s stable for now,” he tells Boyd. “There's a long way to go, and I’m not making any promises, but we’ve done everything we can. For every hour that passes now, her odds will start to improve.”

“Can I see her?” is all Boyd wants to know.

“Yes, but not for long. She's still being settled.”

“Thank you,” Boyd tells him, and rarely has he ever meant anything quite so much. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” acknowledges the doctor, with a tired but relieved smile. “Do you have any questions?”

“I do,” Eve says. “But I can wait,” she adds, indicating Boyd. Doctor Wallace nods in agreement with her and then leads Boyd through the doors behind them.

* * *

It’s not what he’s expecting. He’s spent enough time over the years in and around hospitals to be at least vaguely familiar with the sight of all the tubes and wires, the monitors and the pale blue sheets and the intrusive, irritating sounds of constant whirring, beeping and hissing that seem to emanate from every hulking machine. None of that fazes him. None of that leaves a great, gaping chasm in his heart that burns with wild, relentless fury and aches with a deep tenderness and an overwhelming sense of sadness.

It’s not even the sight of her looking so tiny in comparison to the chunky and solidly bulky hospital bed- he is, after all, intimately acquainted with exactly how slight she is. Nor is it the stark, papery paleness of her skin, except around her throat where the evidence of Higgins attempt to strangle her is raw red and still angrily inflamed.

It’s simply the fact that she’s lying on her back, her eyes are peacefully closed and she could just be fast asleep. It’s wrong, so very wrong. Because Grace always sleeps curled on her side, usually snuggled as close to him as she can get.

She’s got tubes in her arms and down her throat. There are drains running out of her chest and wires of all colours tracking her every function. There are bandages visible at the edges of her gown, and special blankets designed to keep raising her temperature. There are drugs and fluids and blood products dripping into her body, and other things running back out. A nurse is adjusting monitors and making notes in the chart at the end of the bed, but Boyd doesn’t even notice. He’s far too preoccupied with Grace.

Her hand is caught in the sheets and an IV line, but he manages to carefully slide his fingers under hers, his thumb lightly tracing her knuckles. There is still blood there. It’s long since dry now, and it flakes slightly when his skin moves over hers. And as he looks at their tangled fingers, he realises he hasn’t washed his either. Her blood is still marking both of them.

* * *

It’s a long way past very late and heading relentlessly towards obnoxiously early when Esther finally gets home - it’s a long drive, but it is worth every mile. Home is twenty-five acres of smallholding with sheep, a handful of chickens, a couple of horses and endless rows of organic vegetables. It’s a collection of rescue animals, alternative medicine and homegrown, homemade remedies. Home is Leah, who has owned her heart since they were both seventeen and lost among the edges of society. Leah who heals people, by restoring the balance of mind, body and soul.

It is Leah who finds her with her head in her hands at the kitchen table and who gently works the tension of the day from her neck and shoulders. It is Leah who coaxes her into eating a bowl of thick, homemade vegetable soup flavoured with herbs from the garden, who listens to the horrors of the day, and who eventually shoos her off to bed and the temporary reprieve of a deep, dreamless sleep. It is Leah who sets the alarm, knowing there is more to face tomorrow, and who, before succumbing to slumber herself, stands in the moonlit window and recites the time-honoured prayer of healing for two women who tonight are very much in need of it.

* * *

They evict him from intensive care after only fifteen minutes, but it is done with kindness and detailed, honest answers to all of his questions. Grace is under heavy sedation and will stay that way for at least the next twenty-four hours, probably longer. They take his phone number, promise to keep him updated if anything changes and urge him to go home and get some sleep. Nothing else will happen tonight.

Knowing a fight with them is a lost cause, he manages only a weary sigh and another long look at her, lying completely immobile and unaware under the layers of blankets and monitoring equipment. Bending down, he presses a soft kiss to her temple and promises to be back as soon as visiting hours allow. When he stands though, he realises letting go of her hand and walking out is going to be impossible. He can’t - he won’t - leave her.

But the nurses are very determined and quite suddenly, a little shell-shocked and bewildered, he finds himself back out in the corridor with several closed doors behind him.

His team are all still there. Still waiting.

He tries to take a deep breath, tries to recover some of his normal composure. It’s an exercise in sheer futility.  

Eve has spoken at length with Doctor Wallace and has asked all of her questions, has acquired all the knowledge she wanted, but didn’t want. She’s quietly explained and interpreted for Spence and Stella, painting the best picture she can, giving them what hope she can find in the prognosis. But when she sees Boyd walking back toward their small group, she can easily and immediately read in his eyes and the defeated, exhausted set of his shoulders how awful it was in the intensive care unit.

He offers something of a half-smile when their eyes meet; Eve nods in understanding and when he stops beside them, she rests her hand on his arm for a moment, offering strength, solidarity.

“She’s stable,” he tells them, searching for something, anything, to say. “They’ve kicked me out for the night.” He looks at each of them. “Apparently we should go home. Get some sleep.”

None of them move. They can only stand there, exhausted and lost. Firmly ensnared in the shock of it all.

Eventually Boyd manages to gather himself, marshal his thoughts a little. There are things that need doing.

“Go home,” he orders them all, but with considerable gentleness. “Sleep. Eat.” He glances at his watch, squinting and trying to make sense of the blurry, moving mess of hands and numbers. The middle of the night has long since been and gone. It’s closer to getting up time than bedtime. “Don’t show up before lunch,” he orders, because he knows they will and he wants them to take care of themselves. Grace would want them too. They nod and mumble assent, and slowly the four of them straggle out to the car park, each trying to remember how they arrived. 

Eve came in a taxi, Boyd in an ambulance and Spence and Stella in the Audi. They ride back to CCHQ together, and Boyd sits behind the wheel, engine idling, until he’s watched all of them leave and drive away into the night. Only then does he take a deep breath and head for home. Grace’s home.

* * *

It’s eerie how normal it feels to walk up to the familiar front door and slip the key into the lock. He thinks it should feel different, awkward. It doesn’t. It feels as natural and normal as every one of the hundreds of other times he’s done exactly the same thing.

Tomorrow, he thinks, he needs to find where she left her car and move it. Automatically he locks the door behind him, hangs up his coat and puts his keys on the hall table. His phone he keeps in his pocket; it needs charging and he will do that beside the bed.

Bed. It sounds so tempting. Either that, or the sofa and a bottle of whiskey. The good stuff. Copious amounts of it. With his phone beside him while he waits. It won’t do him any good though. And what if the phone does ring and he needs to leave in a hurry? He doesn’t want to think about it.

Instead he downs a glass of water, takes a much needed shower and watches as her blood swirls together with the soap suds, runs away down the drain. It’s too much, and he falls heavily into bed, shivering deeply despite the warmth of the room and the heat of the shower still clinging to him. He’s desperately tired, but sleep refuses to come. He can smell her all around him as he sprawls restlessly in their bed. With his eyes closed he can almost feel her curled against him, but when he peers into the gloomy darkness beside him, there are only empty sheets. He is very much alone.

* * *

He’s early the next morning. He hovers irritably and impatiently outside the ICU, and is the first one to enter the second the nurse allows visiting to begin.

Nothing has changed.

She’s there, almost exactly as she was last night. There are a few small differences, but nothing spectacular. Nothing significant. Someone has made an effort to wash away the blood; her hands are clean, and when he curls his fingers around hers, he notices that they are warm too. The extra blankets are gone and her body temperature is a lot more stable.

She’s still critical though. Still not breathing on her own. Still sedated. And around her neck and wrists heavy, dark purple bruising is beginning to bloom spectacularly.

He leans down beside her, strokes her cheek gently and murmurs quietly in her ear. He tells her he loves her; promises her that if she doesn’t give up on him, she can spend the rest of her life driving him crazy.

There is no response. The ventilator hisses and the machines keep beeping. Her chest rises and falls rhythmically, but her eyes don’t open. She gives no indication that she has any idea he is there with her.

* * *

Philippa is kept in hospital for three days. She too has intense bruising across much of her body, and the marks of Higgins attempts to strangle her are also blatantly visible. Her left wrist is fractured and she has a mild concussion because she put up a fight when he tried to force her into his van. She’s quiet and exhausted, and her parents never leave her side. When she is released the only thing she wants is to be reunited with her dog. Maggie is ecstatic to see her mistress, and it is only then, in the safety of her home and with the comfort of her beloved pet in her arms, that she gives in to the tears.

* * *

It’s a long week that follows. A week of uncertainty and hurdles, of sedation and morphine and an inability to breathe independently. It’s also a week of short tempers, fits of shouting across the squad room followed by hours of sulking, and of magnificent and meticulous attention to detail as they apply themselves to every single aspect and individual element of the case against Higgins. They are determined to nail him for everything and anything they possibly can, and nothing is going to stand in their way.

Eve has barely left the lab as she wades through the contents of the storage locker, the evidence from the grave and everything else that she had yet to touch from the eleven dead girls before Philippa Baker was taken. She hasn’t been to the body farm all week, except for a couple of fleeting, necessary visits. She turns up in the basement each morning for their customary start of the day meeting, and then disappears for hours on end, occasionally surfacing just long enough to refill her coffee mug and snag a chocolate biscuit before vanishing back to the lab again.

Spencer and Stella have been all but chained to their desks, talking occasionally, but for the most part working steadily away in near silence. Boyd has been holed up in his office, scrutinising everything the team bring him, refusing to sign anything that is less than perfect and irritably sending back to them anything that could, or should, be better.

The tension down in the bunker is ridiculously high considering they are such a tightknit group. But the uncertainty weighs on each of them as the days pass and there is only very slow and very slight improvement in Grace’s condition. She’s hanging on, but only just, and every time one of them so much as glances in the direction of her closed and empty office, they feel the loss of her warmth and presence all the more keenly.

Tiny annoyances that would ordinarily be ignored have become the foundations and triggers of daily explosions of temper as each of them struggles with the situation and the lack of certainty ahead. By weeks’ end they are all simmering with the slow build of ill-tempered strain and when, at ten past five on Friday afternoon, Boyd gathers his coat, closes his office door behind him and stalks out of the CCHQ in a very determined manner, the others only take a collective deep breath, letting it out again very slowly. No one dares mention the unheard of notion of Boyd leaving before anyone else. They just tuck their heads down and keep on working.

* * *

Esther’s skin is crawling as she sits in the interview room opposite James Higgins and observes the way he is disinterestedly staring at the wall. This is the third time she has attempted to question him and he has pointedly said nothing so far; not even given so much as a no comment to a single one of her questions. His lawyer, seated beside him and dressed in an obscenely expensive suit, looks just as bored and Esther really has to wonder - not for the first time in her career - what kind of person can bring themselves to represent the kind of pure evil that is sitting in the room with them, idly scratching at a scab on his forearm.

Yesterday she finished interviewing Philippa Baker – an ordeal that took two full days - and afterwards nearly had to take a bath in bleach just to feel like a normal human being again. She was awed by the strength of character the girl showed as they talked through the entire nightmare, recording everything Higgins had said and done to her. Visibly shaken by what had happened, and admittedly suffering from nightmares and flashbacks, Philippa nevertheless still wanted to press on with telling her story, determined to see it through to the end.

Sitting beside her, her mother was a lot less composed, but still managed to hold herself together for her daughter. Esther wondered if the woman would ever let her child out of her sight again.

“He told me all about the other girls,” Philippa quietly told Esther. “All eleven of them. What he did to them, how he did it, and how they reacted. I’m never going to forget that, and neither are their families. So I want to make sure he rots in the darkest dungeon there is.”

Still watching Higgins, Esther lets nothing of her tangled thoughts and emotions show on her face. He’s bored, and unconcerned by the proceedings happening around him. He leers unpleasantly at her from time to time, but continues to say nothing. They’ve been down the psychological assessment route and the resulting professional opinion agreed with Esther’s own views; Higgins is not a nutter. He’s just a nasty, disgusting, evil man. One who is every bit as uncooperative as Boyd and his team warned her he would be.

They don’t need a confession. There is more than enough evidence to nail him for the murders of all eleven school girls, the abduction of Philippa Baker, and the attempted murder of Grace Foley. Esther wants to hear him say it though. She doesn’t need or want to know why – she’s been in this job for far too long to believe understanding will make any of it easier to accept – but she still wants to hear it. For Philippa, for Grace and for the eleven other girls whose families are still mourning their loss. It’s a pointless desire though; she’s been interviewing suspects for many, many years now and one of the countless things she’s learned is that sometimes there are offenders who just won’t speak, no matter what.

This whole case is going to shadow her heart for a long time to come; it’s going to shadow and scar a lot of hearts. Consequently, she’s not willing to take even the slightest risk of pushing too hard and possibly destabilising the conviction. As much as it tears at her, it is better she misses out on her confession and he gets his due.

* * *

Stella can’t let go of the nagging feeling that they have missed something. Not something in the evidence - they have combed through every single strand, organised and documented every detail and produced a flawless record of what happened. It’s not that at all. No, it’s that conversation which is still rattling around inside her mind and bothering her every time she gets a few minutes to herself. A few minutes like those which she has right now. Boyd’s gone, and Spence has been upstairs talking to a fellow DI for the last half an hour. She’s on her own in the large and empty squad room with only her thoughts to occupy her.

Though it is burned into her memory, she visits Eve in the lab and asks her to play the audio clip from Boyd’s voicemail. She listens to Grace and Higgins again and again, pacing up and down as the tape plays while Eve quietly stands at the desk and watches her with curiosity.

“What’s bothering you?” the pathologist finally asks.

“Why did he go after Grace?” demands Stella, running a fraught hand through her hair. “Why did he think Boyd had something to do with his conviction? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Eve sighs heavily; she’s entertained similar thoughts all week. Watching Stella stalk the length of the room and back again, she can see the barely contained anger. There is rage bubbling beneath the surface of the other woman; rage and a sense of furious injustice. Eve is very busy and she really doesn’t have time for this, but she can feel how important it is to Stella to try and understand why Higgins attacked Grace.

“Ok, let’s break it down,” she suggests at last. “We’ll start with his conviction. Are you positive Boyd had absolutely nothing to do with that case?”

“Yes! Certain!” Stella replies, and Eve doesn’t miss the huge effort that goes into curtailing her frustration and the overwhelming inclination to snap, to lash out. All of them are struggling without Grace; it’s been a long and hard week, punctuated with little improvement in her condition and nothing remotely helpful in the hope department. Eve has been inordinately grateful for the sheer amount of work she’s had, and still has, to keep her busy. Spencer has been much the same, working himself into exhaustion to stop himself thinking, to force back the imaginings that creep up on them all when their minds are unoccupied.  

Stella hasn’t been able to do the same though. She’s kept herself just as busy as the rest of the team, but every time something gets in her way or crosses her, it triggers an explosion of temper. Boyd is just as bad, and Spence has been trying to keep them apart as much as he possibly can, certain they will turn on each other as the hours drag slowly, relentlessly by and still there is no good news.

Eve is faintly awed that Boyd is still functioning. When the three of them turn up at the hospital each evening to visit Grace, Boyd is always there before them, and still there when they leave. He vacates the office at the end of each day, taking work with him rather than staying late into the small hours or even all night, but Eve is sure he isn’t sleeping. How he’s managed to be so incredibly, fastidiously productive when he looks like he’s teetering on the very edge of collapse she has no idea.

Stella hands her a file containing all the details of Higgins prior arrest and Eve shuts down her previous stream of thoughts, shifting her focus. She concentrates intently as she reads, but finds nothing to contradict Stella’s certainty. She drops the file with a disgusted sigh and leans on the edge of her desk, gazing off into the middle distance. Stella is talking it through, trying to come to a conclusion as she once again paces up and down. Eve shuts her ramblings out, deliberately lets her senses wane and allows her mind to wander.

It takes a while for her exhausted brain to find the missing thread she is looking for, but eventually she captures the end and reels it in, triumphant.

“How,” she asks Stella, tapping the file beside her, “were Higgins fingerprints on the database in the first place? There’s no mention of that in here!”

* * *

Today is Friday. Today is day nine. And today, at long last, Grace is breathing on her own. Boyd can’t quite believe it as he sits beside her, holding her hand, and telling her about the progress they are making. In the past twenty-four hours she has slowly but steadily turned a corner, started really clawing her way back to him. Her vital signs have all started a continuous and unbroken climb back towards normality and her lungs are working much as they should with very little outside help.

There is undoubtedly a long way to go - something he has been constantly reminded of - but it’s the first really positive news he has had and he is enjoying the fact that it was delivered without any additional complications or comments of concern that he has become so accustomed to hearing every time he steps into the ICU.

Lapsing back into silence, he conducts his own critical assessment of her condition. She’s a mess. There’s no other way to put it. Fading purples and blues are giving way to sickly greens and yellows where the bruising mars her skin, covering her wrists, much of her arms and her throat. Her knees are just as bad, and there is a small fracture to her left tibia caused by a combination of the force of her fall and her knee colliding with a rock as she hit the ground. It will require intervention soon, but for now the leg in question is wrapped, braced and immobilised. She’ll be seeing an osteopath for the foreseeable future too, judging by the state of her back. He’s seen the staggeringly extensive bruises there too, and the clear imprint of the heavy sole of a boot.

Just at the moment though, it all seems just a little less important. Because she is finally, _finally_ breathing on her own, and he is determinedly, wholeheartedly clinging to the hope that milestone has given him.

* * *

Simple human error. That’s all it turns out to be. One single, simple human mistake.

Someone, somewhere, a long time ago now, somehow forgot to enter onto the system the details of Higgins very first arrest. If they hadn't, maybe some of this could have been prevented. Maybe they could have foreseen Higgins lingering anger with Boyd. Maybe they could have guessed what a danger he would be.

Looking at Higgins original arrest photograph it’s easy for Eve and Stella to see why Boyd didn’t recognise him so many years later.

“So this is all because Boyd arrested him for trying to steal his car?” Stella is absolutely incredulous.

“No,” Eve shakes her head slowly, “it’s not. It’s got nothing to do with the car! It’s all about the actual arrest and the records. It was the record of his fingerprints that allowed the police to arrest him a second time. If Boyd hadn’t arrested him first, no one would have found out about his involvement with the smuggling operation and he would never have gone to jail. That’s why he blames Boyd.”

“But why attack Grace? Why not just attack Boyd?”

Eve stares sceptically at Stella, wondering if their boss isn’t the only one who hasn’t been sleeping.

“He’s a predator Stella,” she explains gently. “He observes his pray long before he makes a move. And if you and I knew about Grace and Boyd, then it’s a safe bet he did as well.”

The blood drains from Stella’s face; she looks as though she is about to vomit.

“He likes to make his victims suffer,” she mutters, hands raking through her hair again, clutching tightly at the strands.

“And what better way to make Boyd suffer, than to kill the woman he loves,” concludes Eve, slumping heavily back against her chair.

* * *

Drifting easily and drowsily on the morphine, she dreams. Mostly there are wild pictures and colourful images that make little to no sense, but there are also memories too. She’s sitting on a beach building a sand castle in the shape of a medieval fort. The sun is out, summer is well on its way and beside her, carefully sculpting the details of the drawbridge, is her beautiful six year old baby girl.

Kally is the spitting image of her mother; bright, sparkling blue eyes and a long tangle of brown curls that are swept back into a ponytail, the ends ruffling slightly in the salty breeze wafting towards them from the sea. There’s sand on her nose, and Grace reaches out to gently wipe it away. Kally looks up and laughs.

“That’s tickles mummy,” she giggles and reaches out to trace a star in the sand covering Grace’s foot. Grace gasps and reaches for Kally, pulling her up into her lap, arms tightly fastening around her.

“Now who is tickling who?” she demands with a smile, for Kally knows very well how ticklish her feet are. It’s a trait they share in common and, holding on to her daughter with one hand, Grace slyly reaches for her foot and runs a finger along the sole. Kally squeals and wriggles in her grasp, and they both dissolve into laughter, each trying to out-tickle the other.

Lying on her back in the warm sand and breathlessly clutching at her ribs where they ache from laughing so much, it is Grace who gives in first. Kally curls next to her, rests her head on her mother’s shoulder and tucks her arm around her waist. Grace gathers her closer, snuggling her into a warm hug.

“I love you,” she murmurs into Kally’s ear. “Never forget that.”

“I won’t,” Kally promises. “I love you too mummy.”

Overhead wispy clouds are drifting lazily through the pale blue sky and the sun is shining down on them. It’s a perfect, warm summer day.

* * *

It’s early on Saturday morning, and he’s sitting in the relative comfort of the reasonably well padded armchair beside her bed when she finally wakes. He couldn’t sleep - he hasn’t had an uninterrupted night since she was attacked - and so, at four am, after yet another series of brutal nightmares, he gave up on the whole attempt, dressed and came to sit with her. They eased up on the sedation last night, allowing her to start slowly waking up; it’s why they let him in so early. That and the fact that he’s come to an understanding with a couple of the more agreeable night nurses.

He’s been quietly snoozing beside her for a couple of hours now, a feat that is possible because his hand is resting on the bed, carefully holding hers in a warm and reassuring grip. He’s only dozing though, and when he feels the slight tug on his fingers he’s instantly awake and aware, and leaning forward to check on her.

Her eyes are open, and they immediately settle on him as soon as he moves into her range of vision, but he can see it takes her a while to focus properly. She blinks sluggishly and he can tell she has no idea where she is; her eyes are full of a deep, heavy drug induced confusion that tugs at his heart.

“It’s ok,” he soothes gently, and he softly traces the fingers of his free hand over her cheek, carefully avoiding the clear plastic tubing supplying her with oxygen. She stares up at him, her deep blue eyes so dazed that he can’t help the tears that prickle hotly and uncomfortably at the back of his own. “You’re safe,” he promises, leaning down to brush his lips against her forehead. Her fingers tighten around his and she holds his gaze for a few moments more, before her eyes simply slide shut again and she tumbles effortlessly back into the abyss.

 


End file.
